Hero Designer 6th Edition - Hero Games Company

Created by dan Simon

Created By: Dan Simon 

Concept: Dan Simon and Steven S. Long 

Documentation: Rod Currie 

PDF Generation: B. Neumeier 

SPECIAL THANKS 

From Dan: It has been said that the Hero Games community is one of the best in the industry in terms of supporting each other and 

helping the HERO System to grow. Never has this been made more clear to me than in the massive effort put forth by the entire community in 

testing and helping to debug Hero Designer. Over the past several years, members of the Hero Games community have spent countless hours 

testing and retesting Hero Designer, finding all of my mistakes, and making suggestions on ways to improve the application. 

To all of the players that have helped make Hero Designer a reality: Thank you. This project would not have been possible without you. 

From Steve: Hero Games would also like to thank: Dan, for all his hard work; and Rod, for preparing this manual. Thanks, guys! 

DISCLAIMER 

While the programmer has worked hard to make Hero Designer follow the HERO System 5th Edition and HERO System 6th Edition 

rules, only the HERO System 5th Edition Revised and HERO System 6th Edition rulebook, the Rules FAQs and errata pages maintained on 

the Hero Games website, and the rulings of the HERO System Line Developer are "official" explanations of the rules. As more gamers use 

the HERO System in more ways, situations sometimes arise which have not previously been considered, and our general understanding and 

interpretation of the rules grows and improves. In the event an official rules explanation differs from Hero Designer, the program will be 

updated at the earliest convenience of Hero Games. 

Hero Designer © 2002, 2003, 2006, 2009 by DOJ, Inc. d/b/a Hero Games. All rights reserved. 

HERO System ® is DOJ, Inc.'s trademark for its roleplaying system. 

HERO System Copyright © 1984, 1989, 2002, 2009 by DOJ, Inc. d/b/a Hero Games. All rights reserved. 

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, 

recording, or computerization, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher: DOJ, 

Inc., 226 E. 54th Street, #605, New York, NY 10022-48541

INTRODUCTION ...................................................................... 1 

What’s New In Hero Designer 6 th Edition? .......................................... 1 

Hero Designer Support ............................................................... 1 

Hero System Fifth Edition Revised ............................................. 1 

Standard Character Templates ................................................... 2 

BASIC CONCEPTS ................................................................... 2 

Character Templates ........................................................................... 2 

Export Formats ................................................................................... 2 

Configurable Preferences ................................................................... 2 

Configurable Campaign Rules ............................................................. 2 

Prefabs ................................................................................................ 2 

Package Deals (Templates) ................................................................. 3 

Hero Designer Math ............................................................................ 3 

Rounding Calculations ..................................................................... 3 

Formulae Versus Tables ................................................................... 3 

Sharing Hero Designer Files ....................................................... 3 

Hero Designer Character Packs .................................................. 4 

Editable Fields .................................................................................... 4 

Value Selector Boxes ....................................................................... 4 

Editable Text Fields .......................................................................... 4 

Pop-Up Boxes ..................................................................................... 4 

Install Directory ................................................................................... 4 

Updating Hero Designer ...................................................................... 4 

USING HERO DESIGNER ......................................................... 5 

Starting A Character............................................................................ 5 

Total Points In Sixth Edition ........................................................ 6 

Loading An Existing Character ......................................................... 6 

Changing The Character Template ...................................................... 6 

Exploring The Hero Designer Interface ............................................... 6 

Basic Info Tab ................................................................................... 7 

Cutting And Pasting From Other Applications ............................. 7 

A Note About Entering Characteristics ....................................... 8 

Background Tab ............................................................................... 8 

Characteristics Tab ........................................................................... 8 

Characteristic Maxima .................................................................. 8 

Ability And Complications Tabs ........................................................ 9 

Skills Tab ....................................................................................... 9 

Perks Tab ....................................................................................... 9 

Where Are Disadvantages? ......................................................... 9 

Talents Tab .................................................................................. 10 

Martial Arts Tab ........................................................................... 10 

Powers Tab .................................................................................. 10 

Complications Tab ....................................................................... 10 

Equipment Tab ............................................................................. 10 

Separating Tabs From Main Window ........................................... 10 

Adding Abilities And Complications .................................................. 11 

Adding An Item ............................................................................... 11 

Deleting An Item ............................................................................. 11 

Moving An Item .............................................................................. 11 

Editing An Item ............................................................................... 11 

Naming An Item.............................................................................. 11 

Modifiers and Templates .......................................................... 12 

Changing The Text Of An Item ........................................................ 12 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Attaching Adders And Modifiers ..................................................... 12 

Ability-Specific Adders ................................................................ 12 

Standard Modifiers ...................................................................... 12 

Custom Modifiers ........................................................................ 13 

Custom Adders ............................................................................ 13 

Modifier Intelligence ................................................................. 13 

Special Effects .......................................................................... 14 

Copying, Cutting, And Pasting Modifiers ........................................ 14 

Cost Multipliers .............................................................................. 14 

Assigning Special Effects ............................................................... 14 

Attaching Notes .............................................................................. 14 

Associating Files ............................................................................ 14 

Viewing An Ability’s Definition ........................................................ 15 

Copying, Cutting, And Pasting ........................................................ 15 

Unusual Everyman Skills .......................................................... 16 

Sorting ........................................................................................... 16 

Skills .............................................................................................. 16 

Custom Skills .............................................................................. 17 

Language Familiarity Chart ...................................................... 17 

Perks .............................................................................................. 18 

Custom Perks .............................................................................. 18 

Talents ............................................................................................ 18 

Custom Talents ............................................................................ 19 

Martial Arts ..................................................................................... 19 

Custom Maneuvers ..................................................................... 20 

Powers ........................................................................................... 21 

Characteristics From Powers ...................................................... 21 

Characteristics As Powers ........................................................... 21 

Buying SPD As A Power ............................................................ 21 

Targeting And Nontargeting Senses ......................................... 22 

Compound Powers ...................................................................... 22 

Naked Advantages ....................................................................... 22 

Custom Powers ........................................................................... 23 

Disadvantages And Fifth Edition Templates .............................. 24 

Complications ................................................................................ 24 

Custom Complications ................................................................ 24 

Equipment ...................................................................................... 24 

Working With Lists And Frameworks ................................................ 25 

Lists................................................................................................ 25 

Creating A List ............................................................................. 25 

Attaching Modifiers To Lists And Frameworks ......................... 25 

Attaching Custom Adders To Lists And Frameworks ................ 26 

Adding Items To A List ................................................................. 26 

Removing Items From A List........................................................ 26 

Deleting A List ............................................................................. 26 

Separators ...................................................................................... 26 

Elemental Controls ......................................................................... 26 

Multipowers ................................................................................... 27 

Variable Power Pools ..................................................................... 28 

Skill And Perk Enhancers ............................................................... 29 

Working With Multiple Characters .................................................... 29 

Combat Records ............................................................................... 30 

Exporting A Combat Record ........................................................... 30

Previewing A Combat Record ......................................................... 30 

Saving A Character ........................................................................... 30 

Closing A Character .......................................................................... 31 

Previewing, Exporting, And Printing A Character .............................. 31 

Setting The Export Format ............................................................. 31 

Exporting And Printing A Character ................................................ 31 

Previewing A Character .................................................................. 32 

Printing To PDF ............................................................................... 32 

CONFIGURING HERO DESIGNER ........................................... 33 

Application Preferences .................................................................... 33 

General Preferences ....................................................................... 33 

System Preferences ....................................................................... 33 

Display Preferences ....................................................................... 34 

Modifier Intelligence Preferences .................................................. 35 

Prefabs Settings ............................................................................. 35 

Template Preferences .................................................................... 35 

Hero Games Writers’ Guidelines ............................................... 35 

Campaign Rules ................................................................................ 36 

Point Limits Tab .............................................................................. 36 

Characteristic Maxima Tab ............................................................. 37 

Rules Tab ........................................................................................ 37 

Settings Tab ................................................................................... 38 

Saving Campaign Rules ................................................................. 39 

Attaching Campaign Rules To A Character ..................................... 39 

PREFABS AND PACKAGE DEALS ........................................... 40 

Prefabs .............................................................................................. 40 

Creating A Prefab ........................................................................... 40 

Creating A Prefab From A Character ............................................ 41 

Loading And Unloading Prefabs ..................................................... 41 

Using Prefabs ................................................................................. 41 

Editing A Prefab .............................................................................. 41 

Package Deals .................................................................................. 42 

Creating Package Deals ................................................................. 42 

Applying Package Deals ................................................................. 42 

Editing Package Deals ................................................................... 42 

CHARACTER TEMPLATES ..................................................... 43 

Saving A Character As A Template .................................................... 43 

Creating A Template From Scratch ................................................. 43 

Copies Of Standard Character Templates ................................. 43 

Custom Templates From Previous Versions .............................. 44 

The Hierarchical Structure of Character Templates ....................... 44 

XML Basics ..................................................................................... 44 

Structure Of A Character Template ................................................. 44 

Common Attributes ...................................................................... 44 

Common Subcontainers .............................................................. 45 

Basic Info Fields ....................................................................... 46 

Background Fields .................................................................... 46 

TEMPLATE Container ................................................................... 46 

Ability Containers ........................................................................ 46 

MAINAPP Section ........................................................................ 46 

CHARACTERISTICS Section .......................................................... 47 

Available Characteristics .......................................................... 47 

SKILLS Section ............................................................................ 48 

SKILL_ENHANCERS Section ........................................................ 48 

MARTIAL_ARTS Section ............................................................... 48 

PERKS Section ............................................................................. 49 

TALENTS Section ......................................................................... 49 

POWERS Section ......................................................................... 49 

MODIFIERS Section ..................................................................... 49 

Built-In Template Names .......................................................... 50 

DISADVANTAGES Section ............................................................. 50 

Creating Extension Templates ........................................................ 50 

EXPORT FORMATS ............................................................... 52 

Creating An Export Format ................................................................ 52 

Describing The Format ................................................................... 53 

Replacement Containers ................................................................ 53 

MATH Container ............................................................................. 53 

Conditional Containers ................................................................... 53 

Looping Containers ........................................................................ 53 

Combat Record Export Formats ........................................................ 54 

Available Tags And Containers .......................................................... 54 

Basic Tags ...................................................................................... 54 

Format Information Tags ............................................................. 54 

Character Information Tags ......................................................... 54 

Image Tags .................................................................................. 55 

Point Total Tags............................................................................ 55 

OCV, DCV, And ECV Tags ............................................................... 55 

Equipment Tags ........................................................................... 55 

Replacement Tags ....................................................................... 55 

Math Tags .................................................................................... 55 

Note Tags ..................................................................................... 55 

Combat Record Tags.................................................................... 55 

Movement Tags .............................................................................. 55 

Running Tags ............................................................................... 55 

Swimming Tags ........................................................................... 55 

Leaping Tags ............................................................................... 56 

Flight Tags ................................................................................... 56 

Gliding Tags ................................................................................. 56 

Swinging Tags ............................................................................. 56 

Teleportation Tags ....................................................................... 56 

Tunneling Tags ............................................................................. 56 

Characteristic Tags ......................................................................... 56 

General Characteristic Tags ......................................................... 56 

Specific Characteristic Tags ........................................................ 56 

Ability Tags ..................................................................................... 57 

General Tags ................................................................................ 57 

Combat Level Tags ...................................................................... 58 

Lightning Reflexes ....................................................................... 58 

Martial Art Tags ........................................................................... 58 

Skill Tags ..................................................................................... 58 

Perk Tags ..................................................................................... 58 

Talent Tags .................................................................................. 59 

Power Tags .................................................................................. 59 

Equipment Tags ........................................................................... 59 

Complication/Disadvantage Tags ................................................ 59

Hero Designer 6th Edition Introduction ■ 1 

INTRODUCTION 

Hero Designer is a full-featured character 

design program for the HERO System Fifth 

Edition and HERO System Sixth Edition. 

With this program, you can create any type 

of character, vehicle, base, automaton, computer, or 

AI described in the HERO System Fifth Edition or 

HERO System Sixth Edition rules. 

Unlike other character design programs, Hero 

Designer has been built from the ground up to help 

guide users through the myriad calculations and 

rules that go into creating a valid HERO System 

character. Wherever possible, the rules that govern 

how Hero Designer builds characters and abilities 

can be configured and altered by the user. It is our 

goal to provide a character design program that is 

as flexible as the HERO System itself. 

GMs, however, should still be on the lookout for 

potentially abusive characters. Just because Hero 

Designer permits a player to build a character, it 

doesn’t mean that you have to accept the character 

in your campaign. Hero Designer, in the interest 

of flexibility, permits many options that normally 

require GM’s permission and as usual, GMs should 

make sure to approve all aspects of characters for 

their campaigns. 

Part of what makes Hero Designer unique is 

that it is very much a community application, 

drawing from the talents and designs of the Hero 

Games community as a whole. The rules that the 

application uses, the abilities that are available, and 

the format of the final character sheets are all part of 

an ongoing community effort. You can find an everincreasing 

number of characters, custom templates, 

Prefabs, Package Deals, and character sheet formats 

in the Hero Designer section of the Hero Games 

website (www.herogames.com) 

Hero Games supports Hero Designer in many 

ways. In addition to regular free upgrades to 

improve the functionality and flexibility of the 

program, we offer collections of characters, Package 

Deals, and other elements from our books, and 

anything else we can think of that we believe you’d 

like to have. So, if there’s something new and 

exciting you’d like to see for Hero Designer, please 

drop us a line at info@herogames.com. 

WHAT’S NEW IN HERO 

DESIgNER 6 TH EDITION? 

Since the release of the first version of Hero 

Designer in December 2002, we have gained greater 

insight into what HERO System players desire in a 

character design program. And as that insight grew, 

Hero Designer grew and change to reflect it. 

With the release of the HERO System Sixth 

Edition in August 2009, it was time for Hero 

Designer to grow and change again. The result is 

Hero Designer 6th Edition. 

Not only is Hero Designer 6th Edition, like all 

major revisions of Hero Designer, more efficient 

and more robust, but it also features a number of 

exciting new features: 

■ Full support for creating characters using either 

HERO System Fifth Edition or HERO System 

Sixth Edition rules. 

■ Improved Modifier assignment. You can now 

copy Modifiers from one ability to another. 

■ New display editing capability. You can now edit 

the text displayed for an ability. 

■ Improved Prefab handling. Prefabs are now 

handled more efficiently. 

■ New “print to PDF” functionality lets you 

generate PDF character sheets that resemble 

the blank character sheets provided in the 

rulebooks. 

■ New memory management option. You can now 

increase the amount of memory available to 

Hero Designer. 

■ And more. 

HERO DESIgNER 

SUPPORT 

Should you have problems 

with Hero Designer 6th Edition, you can report 

them in the Hero Designer 

forum on the Hero Games 

website. To connect to this 

forum, select Go to Hero 

Designer Forum… from 

the Help menu or type 

Alt-D. You can also e-mail 

support@herodesigner. 

com with your questions. 

You can discuss Hero 

Designer 6th Edition with 

its creators and other users 

in the Hero Designer 

forum on the Hero Games 

website (www.herogames. 

com). 

HERO SySTEM 

FIFTH EDITION 

REvISED 

This manual refers at times 

to the HERO System Fifth 

Edition rulebook. These 

references apply equally to 

both the original HERO 

System Fifth Edition 

rulebook and the newer 

HERO System Fifth Edition 

Revised rulebook.

2 ■ Basic Concepts Hero Designer 6th Edition 

STANDARD 

CHARACTER 

TEMPLATES 

Hero Designer includes 

the following standard 

character templates for 

use in creating both 


and HERO System Sixth 

Edition characters: 

■ Heroic 

■ Superheroic 

■ Vehicle 

■ Base 

■ Automaton 

■ Computer 

■ Automaton 

■ AI 

In addition, Hero Designer 

includes the following 

template for HERO System 

Fifth Edition: 

■ Normal 

To create Normal 

characters for HERO 

System Sixth Edition, use 

the Heroic template. 

BASIC CONCEPTS 

This chapter introduces a number of the basic 

concepts associated with Hero Designer. 

Many of these concepts appear throughout 

this manual and discussing them up front 

will make it easier for you to understand them 

when they show up later. 

CHARACTER TEMPLATES 

A character template is an XML (Extensible 

Markup Language) file that defines a given type of 

HERO System character. Each template specifies 

Characteristics, abilities (Skills, Powers, Perks, 

and so forth), Disadvantages, and Modifiers 

(Advantages and Limitations) available to build that 

character type along with their costs. 

Because the character template also defines 

exactly what options are available for abilities and 

Modifiers as well as the relationships between 

different abilities and Modifiers, you can change 

how Hero Designer interprets the HERO System 

rules by changing the template. The “Character 

Templates” chapter on page 43 contains instructions 

for modifying and expanding existing character 

templates and creating new ones. 

Character templates should not be confused with 

Templates, the HERO System Sixth Edition name 

for Package Deals. Because character templates 

are such a central idea to Hero Designer, the game 

element called Templates will continue to be called 

Package Deals by this program. 

ExPORT FORMATS 

Hero Designer lets you export the characters you 

create in a variety of formats for viewing, editing 

or printing with a web browser, text editor, word 

processor, or other such program. To do this, it uses 

Export Formats. 

Export Formats are files which contain special 

fields that get replaced by information from your 

character when you export that character. These 

files could be HTML (for web browsers), plain text, 

or more complex formats such as RTF (used by 

many word processors including Microsoft Word). 

Because the Export Format determines what 

information is exported and where it is placed 

in the exported file, this feature lets you create 

character sheets with a wide variety of looks. 

Hero Designer provides a variety of Export 

Formats for both individual characters and multicharacter 

combat records, including HTML Export 

Format based on the standard HERO System Fifth 

Edition character sheet among others. 

Finally, Hero Designer lets you modify existing 

Export Formats or create your own. The “Export 

Formats” chapter on page 52 has instructions for 

creating and editing Export Formats. 

CONFIgURABLE 

PREFERENCES 

Hero Designer has many features you can 

turn on and off from the Preferences dialog. The 

Preferences dialog. To launch the Preferences 

dialog, select Preferences from the File menu. 

For a complete description of the Preferences 

dialog and the features it controls, see the 

“Application Preferences” section on page 33. 

CONFIgURABLE 

CAMPAIgN RULES 

You can tailor Hero Designer to your individual 

campaign by setting a variety of campaign-related 

configurable limits and options. These options 

can be saved and loaded as desired, allowing 

you to create characters for a variety of different 

campaigns. 

For a complete description of campaign rules, 

see the “Campaign Rules” section on page 36. 

PREFABS 

When creating HERO System characters, you 

will often find there are certain pre-built Powers, 

pieces of equipment, Skill lists, collections of 

Martial Maneuvers, and so forth that you use over 

and over again. To make reusing such items easier, 

Hero Designer features a concept called Prefabs.

Hero Designer 6th Edition Basic Concepts ■ 3 

Prefabs are files containing items that you want 

to use on multiple characters. These files can be 

loaded and unloaded as needed. When a Prefab is 

loaded, you can copy any item from that Prefab to 

the active character. Prefabs are particularly useful 

for things like equipment lists, Martial Arts styles, 

and lists of standard Complications (Disadvantages 

in HERO System Fifth Edition). 

The “Prefabs And Package Deals” chapter on 

page 40 has full instructions for creating and using 

Prefabs. 

PACKAgE DEALS 

(TEMPLATES) 

Package Deals (renamed Templates in 

HERO System Sixth Edition) are collections 

of Characteristic modifications, abilities and 

Complications (Disadvantages in HERO System 

Fifth Edition) intended to be applied to characters 

to represent such things as occupations, unique 

cultures, and fantasy or alien races. While the 

HERO System Sixth Edition rulebook renamed 

Package Deals as Templates, Hero Designer will 

continue to use the name Package Deal to refer to 

such collections. This is to avoid confusion with 

Character Templates which are a central concept of 


To create Package Deal using Hero Designer, 

create a character with the desired modifications, 

abilities, and Disadvantages (or Complications) and 

save it as a Package Deal. The saved Package Deal 

can then be applied to any new or existing Hero 

Designer character. 

The “Prefabs And Package Deals” chapter on 

page 40 has full instructions for creating and using 

Prefabs. 

HERO DESIgNER MATH 

Hero Designer properly calculates the costs of 

all game elements in the HERO System Fifth Edition 

and HERO System Sixth Edition rulebooks. The 

following sections offer greater insight into how 

Hero Designer arrives at some of these values. 

Rounding Calculations 

Hero Designer uses the standard rounding rules 

for the HERO System, though for programming 

reasons sometimes displays them a bit unusually 

during the process. Here’s a brief review of what’s 

going on to help alleviate any confusion about the 

costs the program shows for your character. 

As stated in the HERO System Fifth Edition and 

HERO System Sixth Edition rulebooks, rounding 

occurs at every step of a calculation with values 

rounded to the nearest whole number (values 

ending in .5 are rounded in the character’s favor). 

Note, however, that these rules only apply to 

division and multiplication . When you buy an 

ability that costs less than a full point, you must 

round it up to a full point – you do not get to round 

it down to zero because there is no division or 

multiplication involved. 

There are a few abilities in the HERO System that 

have a .5 in their costs. These include a half die of 

a 3 point Power (like Flash versus a nontargeting 

Sense Group or Dispel), and in HERO System Fifth 

Edition, a Penalty Skill Levels versus a specific 

OCV modifier on a single attack, both of which 

cost 1.5 points each. Hero Designer displays costs 

involving such values as integers (rounded up to 

next whole number, so a ½d6 Dispel is shown as 

costing 2 points); however, behind the scenes, the 

program properly keeps track of the fractional 

values. Thus, if you buy both a ½d6 Dispel and a 

½d6 Flash versus the Hearing Sense Group, Hero 

Designer displays the cost of each as 2, but only 

adds a total of 3 points (not 4) to the character’s 

totals. If the subtotal for a tab on a character ends in 

.5, that subtotal is rounded up when it is displayed; 

however, the proper value is maintained internally 

and used when calculating the character’s overall 

point total. Finally, if the overall point total for 

a character is not a whole number, the total is 

rounded up to the next highest whole number (for 

example, 212.5 is rounded up to 213). 

Adding any Advantage or Limitation (even a 

+0 or -0 one) causes a calculation to take place 

and thus, the results are rounded down when 

the fractional value is .5 or less and up when the 

fractional value is greater than .5. 

By default, Hero Designer calculates to one 

decimal place before rounding. You can change 

the number of decimal places used (for example, 

the HERO System Fifth Edition rulebook and its 

supplements calculate to two decimal places) on the 

Preferences dialog as described in the “Application 

Preferences” section on page 33. 

Example: Joe buys a 6½d6 Dispel with the Affects 

Desolidified Advantage (+1/2) and the Inobvious 

Inaccessible Focus Limitation (-1/4). The Base 

Cost of the Power is 19.5 points (displayed as 20 

points by Hero Designer). Adding the Advantage 

makes the Active Cost 29 points (19.5 x (1 + 

.5) = 29.25 rounded down to 29). Applying the 

Limitation brings the Real Cost of the Power down 

to 23 points (29 / (1 + .25) = 23.2 rounded down 

to 23). 

This same Power without the Advantage but 

with the Limitation would have a Real Cost of 16 

points (19.5 / (1 + .25)=15.6 rounded up to 16). 

Formulae versus Tables 

Several tables in the HERO System Fifth Edition 

and HERO System Sixth Edition rulebooks use 

simplified math to keep the numbers easy to use 

and remember. For example, the Vehicle Size Table 

on page 187 of Volume 2 of the HERO System Sixth 

Edition rulebook correctly shows the length and 

width of the vehicle doubling every three levels, but 

uses simplified values for the intervening levels and 

SHARINg HERO 

DESIgNER FILES 

The Hero Designer section 

of the Hero Games website 

(www,herogames.com) 

has an area called the 

Vault set aside for Hero 

Designer users to share 

characters, character 

templates, Package Deals, 

and Prefabs. 

To access these shared 

resources in the Vault, 

select the appropriate 

action from the Tools 

menu or type the keyboard 

equivalent. This launches 

your default web browser 

and loads the web page 

from which you can 

download Hero Designer 

files of the selected type. 

Note, however, that for this 

feature to work correctly 

you must be connected to 

the Internet and logged 

into the Hero Games 

website with the login ID 

used to purchase Hero 

Designer. In addition, 

some firewalls may prevent 

them from working 

properly. 

To add your own Hero 

Designer files to the Vault, 

go to the appropriate 

section of the Hero 

Designer Vault on the 

Hero Games web site and 

select the Upload option 

for that section.

4 ■ Basic Concepts Hero Designer 6th Edition 

HERO DESIgNER 

CHARACTER PACKS 

You can purchase Hero 

Designer Character Packs 

for various HERO System 

books through the Hero 

Games online store. These 

Character Packs include 

Hero Designer character, 

Prefab, and Package 

Deal files for characters, 

equipment, and templates 

(package deals) described 

in one or more books. 

Once you have purchased 

a Character Pack, you can 

download the compressed 

(zipped) file containing 

the various Hero Designer 

files for that pack. 

To use a Hero Designer 

Character Pack, extract the 

Hero Designer files from 

the compressed (zipped) 

file to a location on your 

system. Within Hero 

Designer, you can then 

navigate to that location in 

the file selector when you 

are loading a character, 

Prefab, or Package Deal 

from that Pack. 

area (length x width). Hero Designer, on the other 

hand, uses more precise values based on formulae 

for these and other fields. This is not only easier 

for the program to handle, but also allows a greater 

degree of customization. Thus, if Hero Designer is 

showing you a different value for such an item than 

what it is shown in the rulebook, this is the reason. 

EDITABLE FIELDS 

Two types of editable fields are used throughout 

the Hero Designer interface: value selector boxes 

and editable text fields. 

value Selector Boxes 

A value selector box consists of a box with a 

number in it with a < and > on either side. Clicking 

< decreases the value in the box while clicking > 

increases the value in the box. You can also edit the 

number in the box directly. 

Editable Text Fields 

Throughout the Hero Designer interface, 

there are numerous text fields that are completely 

editable. This includes the Display field for most 

abilities, the descriptive text for Adders and 

Modifiers, and almost all fields on Complication 

(or Disadvantage) dialogs. Note, however, that costs 

associated with such text fields are not editable. 

Example: Suppose you are purchasing Change 

Environment with the -1 Characteristic Roll and 

all Skill Rolls based on Characteristic combat 

effect and want it to apply to DEX Rolls and 

DEX-based Skill Rolls. Because the combat effect 

description is an editable text field, you can edit 

that field to read “-1 DEX Roll and all Skill Rolls 

based on DEX”. 

POP-UP BOxES 

Hero Designer uses pop-up boxes for two 

purposes: warnings and definitions. 

Warnings boxes appear when you have done 

something that is illegal or not recommended 

according to the HERO System Fifth Edition or 

HERO System Sixth Edition rules. The box explains 

the problem and may describe an action taken by 

the program to correct it. The box also contains a 

checkbox labeled Do not show this again. Checking 

the box dismisses the box and prevents that 

particular warning from showing up again during 

the current session of the program, although the 

warning will show up again the next time you run 

Hero Designer. Clicking elsewhere on the warning 

simply dismisses the box. 

The exact situations which trigger a warning 

can vary, depending on the current application 

preferences and campaign rules. For details, see the 

“Application Preferences” section on page 33 and the 

“Campaign Rules” section on page 36. 

Definition boxes appear when you have asked 

for a definition of an item and contain a description 

of the item in question. Clicking anywhere on the 

box dismisses it. 

INSTALL DIRECTORy 

This manual occasionally refers to the Hero 

Designer install directory. This is the directory in 

which you originally installed the Hero Designer 

software. On Windows systems, if you do not 

change the default directory given by the installer, 

this is normally C:/Program Files/Hero Designer. 

If you chose to install Hero Designer in a 

different directory, that directory is the install 

directory. 

UPDATINg HERO 

DESIgNER 

From time to time, updates to Hero Designer 

become available. These updates provide bug fixes, 

correct interpretations of HERO System rules, or 

add new features. 

To ensure that you are running the most recent 

version, connect to the Internet and select Get 

Application Updates… from the Tools menu. Hero 

Designer launches your default web browser to 

connect to the Hero Designer section of the Hero 

Games website (www.herogames.com) where you 

can download the update. You must be connected 

to the Internet and logged into the Hero Games 

website with the login used to purchase Hero 

Designer. Some firewalls may prevent this feature 

from working. 

Normally, updates to Hero Designer 6th 

Edition take the form of a file with a .jar extension. 

Download this file and save it in the Hero Designer 

install directory (as described in the “Install 

Directory” section on page 4). When downloading 

this file on Windows, you should be careful. Some 

Windows systems (particular those with WinZip 

installed) want to interpret the file as a compressed 

(zipped) folder and save it with a .zip extension. To 

avoid this, select All Files from the dropdown list 

in the Save as type field of the file selector when 

saving the download. 

To view the changes that have been made in all 

updates to Hero Designer 6th Edition, go to the 

Updates page of the Hero Designer area of the Hero 

Games website.

Hero Designer 6th Edition 

Using Hero Designer ■ 5 

USINg HERO 

DESIgNER 

This chapter discusses how to use Hero 

Designer to create characters (including 

vehicles, bases, automatons, computers, and 

AIs) for the HERO System Fifth Edition or 

HERO System Sixth Edition. It provides an overview 

of the Hero Designer interface as well as detailed 

instructions on adding, deleting, and editing 

Skills, Talents, Powers, and other abilities. It also 

shows you how to export the finished character for 

printing, viewing, or displaying on the web. 

STARTINg A CHARACTER 

Normally, when you start Hero Designer, 

an empty version of the main window appears. 

However, if any characters were still open when 

you last exited the program, the last saved versions 

of those characters are automatically loaded. (This 

behavior can be changed in the Preferences dialog 

as described in the “Application Preferences” 

section on page 33.) 

Creating A New Character 

To create a new character, select New Character 

from the File menu. A sub-menu appears with four 

choices: New Character (current template), New 

Character (Hero System 5th Edition Rules), New 

Character (Hero System 6th Edition Rules), and 

New Character (Custom /Non-Standard Rules). 

Selecting New Character (current template) 

displays a blank character form based on the last 

template used during this session of Hero Designer. 

If no template has been used during current Hero 

Designer session the new character is based on 

the Superheroic template. Typing Ctrl-N is the 

equivalent of selecting New Character > New 

Character (current template). 

Selecting New Character (Hero System 6th 

Edition Rules) or New Character (Hero System 

5th Edition Rules) displays a sub-menu showing 

the available templates (as described in the 

“Standard Character Templates” sidebar on page 2). 

From this sub-menu, you can select the template 

you want to use for the new character. Once you do 

so, the appropriate blank character form appears. 

Finally, selecting New Character (Custom/ 

Non-Standard Rules) displays a sub-menu with 

one item: Choose File…. Selecting that item 

displays the Create Character From Template file 

selector. Select the character template you want to 

use and click Create Character. See the “Character 

Templates” chapter on page 43 for details on creating 

a template. 

Once you have begun work on a new character, 

you can change the template as described in the 

“Changing the Character Template” on page 6. 

Additionally, the last set of campaign rules used 

(in any Hero Designer session) is assigned to the 

character. For details on creating and assigning 

campaign rules, see the “Campaign Rules” section 

on page 36.

6 ■ Using Hero Designer Hero Designer 6th Edition 

TOTAL POINTS IN 

SIxTH EDITION 

HERO System Sixth 

Edition changed the way 

that the total Character 

Points available for a 

character are expressed. 


expressed a character’s 

available points as Base 

Points + Maximum 

Disadvantage Points. Thus, 

a 350 point superhero 

would be expressed as 

being built on 200 + 150. 

HERO System Sixth 

Edition expresses available 

character points as Total 

Points with a maximum 

number of points in 

Matching Complications. 

So, a 400 point superhero 

is expressed as 400 Total 

Points with a maximum 

of 75 points in Matching 

Complications. 

For HERO System Fifth 

Edition templates, the 

Basic Info tab has Base 

Points and Max. Disad. 

Points fields. 

For HERO System Sixth 

Edition templates, the 

Basic Info tab has 

instead Points and Max. 

Complication Points 

fields in which you enter 

the Total Points and 

the maximum number 

of points in Matching 


Note, however, that 

Hero Designer makes no 

adjustments in the Points 

value (that is, the Total 

Points available to the 

character) based on the 

actual points in Matching 

Complications. Therefore, 

if you are building a 

character that uses fewer 

than the maximum 

number of Complication 

Points available, you 

must manually lower the 

value of the Points field 

on the Basic Info tab 

by the amount that you 

are under the maximum 

Complication Points. For 

example, if you only use 

50 points of a maximum 

75 points in Matching 

Complications, you would 

lower the value of the 

Points field by 25 points. 

Loading An Existing 

Character 

To load a previously saved Hero Designer 

character, select Open Character… from the File 

menu or type Ctrl-O. A standard file selector dialog 

appears. Select the file containing the character you 

want to load and click Open Character to load that 

file as well as the associated character template and 

campaign rules. 

You can also load a character that has been 

recently worked on by selecting Open Recent from 

the File menu which displays a sub-menu showing 

the most recently worked on files. Select the file 

containing the character you want to use to load 

that file and the associated character template and 

campaign rules. 

Normally, when you load a character, all 

Modifiers attached to that character’s abilities are 

checked to see if they are valid based on Modifier 

Intelligence (see the “Modifier Intelligence” sidebar 

on page 13). You are warned of any invalid Modifiers 

and the offending abilities are displayed in red on 

the appropriate tab. You can change this behavior 

from the Preferences dialog as described in the 


CHANgINg THE 

CHARACTER TEMPLATE 

When a character is active, its associated 

template is loaded into memory. That template 

remains loaded until either you change the template 

associated with the active character or a character 

built on another template is loaded. The currently 

loaded template is shown on the status line at the 

bottom of the Hero Designer window. 

To change the template associated with the 

current active character, select Change Current 

Template from the Current Character menu. This 

normally displays a sub-menu with three items: 

Hero System 6th Edition Rules, Hero System 5th 

Edition Rules, and Custom/Non-Standard Rules. 

Selecting Hero System 6th Edition Rules 

or Hero System 5th Edition Rules displays a 

sub-menu showing the available Hero Designer 

template. From this sub-menu, you can select 

the new template to be assigned to the current 

character. 

Selecting Custom/Non-Standard Rules 

displays a sub-menu with one item: Choose File…. 

Selecting that item displays the Load Template file 

selector. Select the character template you want to 

use and click Load Template. See the “Character 

Templates” chapter on page 43 for details on creating 

a template. 

Once the template has been changed for a 

character, a third item is added to the sub-menu: 

Revert to Original Template. As the name 

implies, selecting this item changes the template 

for the current character to the one with which the 

character was last saved (or the one with which the 

character was created in the case of a character that 

has not yet been saved). 

ExPLORINg THE HERO 

DESIgNER INTERFACE 

When you have one or more characters active, 

the main Hero Designer window displays a series 

of tabs. Each tab represents a different section of a 

typical HERO System character sheet and lets you 

enter and change information about that aspect 

of the character. Precisely which tabs are available 

depends upon the current character template 

and the current campaign rules. The standard AI, 

Automation, Base, Computer, and Vehicle templates 

disable the Background tab while the Equipment 

tab is only available for the Normal (only for Fifth 

Edition characters) and Heroic templates unless 

enabled by the current campaign rules (see the 

“Campaign Rules” section on page 36).

Hero Designer 6th Edition Using Hero Designer ■ 7 

This manual primarily discusses the Sixth 

Edition Superheroic template, but working with any 

of the standard templates is similar. 

Basic Info Tab 

The Basic Info tab (shown on page 6) consists 

of two sections. On the right side of the tab is the 

Basic Configuration section. On the left side is the 

Character Information section. 

The Basic Configuration section consists of 

seven fields that describe the number of Character 

Points available and spent for the active character. 

The Points field is a value selector box specifying 

the total number of points available for building 

the character. The current campaign rules set the 

default value for this field. For HERO System Fifth 

Edition templates, this field is called Base Points 

and specifies the base number of points (before 

Disadvantages) available for building the character. 

The Max. Complication Points field is a value 

selector box specifying the maximum number of 

points in Matching Complications the character 

can take. The current campaign rules set the default 

value for this field. For HERO System Fifth Edition 

characters, this field is called Max. Disad. Points. 

The Complications Points Used field displays 

the number of Complication Points currently taken 

on the Complications tab. If this value exceeds the 

value in the Max. Complication Points field, it is 

displayed in red. For HERO System Fifth Edition 

characters, this field is called Disad. Points Used 

and it tracks Disadvantage Points in the same way. 

The Experience Earned field is a value selector 

box for setting the number of Experience Points the 

character has earned. 

The Experience Spent field shows how many 

Experience Points have been spent. This is the 

points spent on abilities in excess of the value of the 

Points field (or for HERO System Fifth Edition, the 

total of the values in the Base Points, and Disad 

Points Used fields). If this value is greater than the 

value of the Experience Earned field, it is displayed 

in red. 

The Unspent Experience field shows how 

many Experience Points have been earned by the 

character but not yet spent. 

The Total Points field shows how many points 

have been spent on abilities for the character. 

The Character Information section consists of 

several fields that provide information about the 

character and the campaign it is being played in. 

These fields are Character Name, Alternate IDs, 

Campaign Name, Genre, Player Name, and GM. 

Once you enter a name in the Character Name 

field, that name appears in the title bar of the Hero 

Designer window and in the status line at the 

bottom of that window. It also appears in the Open 

CUTTINg 

AND PASTINg 

FROM OTHER 

APPLICATIONS 

With most operating 

systems on which Hero 

Designer runs, you can use 

various shortcut keys to 

cut or copy text from other 

applications and paste it in 

Hero Designer text fields. 

■ Ctrl-C copies selected 

text to the system 

clipboard. 

■ Ctrl-V pastes text from 

the system clipboard at 

the current insertion 

point for text. 

■ Ctrl-X cuts selected 

text and places it on the 

system clipboard. 

For example, suppose you 

are entering a character 

into Hero Designer 

whose background is in 

a Microsoft Word file. To 

copy that background to 

the Background/History 

field of Hero Designer’s 

Background tab, first 

select the text in Word that 

you want to copy and type 

Ctrl-C. Next, switch to 

Hero Designer. Place the 

cursor in the Background/ 

History field of the 

Background tab and type 

Ctrl-V.


A NOTE ABOUT 

ENTERINg 

CHARACTERISTICS 

When a Characteristic’s 

value changes, Hero 

Designer automatically 

updates all other values 

based on it (such as Rolls, 

entries in the Notes 

column, and for HERO 


templates, Figured 

Characteristics). It also 

checks for illegal values 

(such as selling back 

more than one Figured 

Characteristic). This can 

occasionally cause minor 

problems. 

For example, suppose you 

have already sold back the 

character’s STUN and you 

want to change the PD 

from its current value of 

6 to 10. If you attempt to 

do this by deleting the 6 

from the value selector box 

for PD and typing the 10 

in directly, as soon as you 

type the 1, Hero Designer 

updates all values and 

performs the appropriate 

checks. Because the 

program thinks you have 

entered a 1 as the new PD 

and therefore, have sold 

back a second Figured 

Characteristic, it issues 

the appropriate error and 

restores the value to 6. In 

such a case, you can then 

either change the PD using 

< and > or by typing the 10 

in front of the 6 and then 

deleting the 6. 

Files menu. Some templates label the Character 

Name and Alternate IDs fields differently. For 

example, the Vehicle template, labels them as 

Vehicle Name and Vehicle Model. 

Also in the Character Information section is 

the Image field which lets you add an image to the 

character. To do so, click the Click to assign button. 

A standard file selector dialog appears. Select the 

file containing the image and click Set Image. The 

image must be in JPG, GIF, or PNG format. To 

remove an image assigned to the Image field, click 

the Clear Image… button beneath the image. To 

change an image, click on it and use the file selector 

dialog to choose the new image. 

Background Tab 

The Background tab (shown on the previous 

page) contains a number of fields relating to the 

appearance and background of the character. The 

exact fields that are available will depend upon the 

character template currently in use. Fill in these 

fields as desired to describe the character and his 

background. 

The standard AI, Automation, Base, Computer, 

and Vehicle templates disable this tab. 

Characteristics Tab 

The Characteristics tab lets you set the basic 

values for all Characteristics available in the 

current template as well as values for Running, 

Swimming, and Leaping (if appropriate) which for 

purposes of this discussion all will be considered 

Characteristics. For each available Characteristic, 

there are seven columns. 

The Value column has a value selector box 

used to set the value for the current Characteristic. 

This is the basic value of the Characteristic. If 

you want to attach any Limitations or Advantages 

to all or part of the Characteristic’s value, you 

should buy that part of the value as a Power (see 

“Characteristics as Powers” on page 21). You can 

move from one Characteristic to the next with the 

Tab key. The Char column displays the name of the 

Characteristic. 

The Base column displays the starting value for 

the Characteristic. For HERO System Sixth Edition 

characters, the character template specifies these 

starting values. For HERO System Fifth Edition 

characters, the character template supplies the 

starting values for Primary Characteristics while 

the starting values for Figured Characteristics 

are calculated from the appropriate Primary 

Characteristics. 

The Cost column displays the cost in Character 

Points for the current value of the Characteristic. 

The Total column shows the total value of the 

Characteristic. This is the value from the Value 

column plus any Characteristics from Powers 

(including Characteristics bought as Powers). 

Because Characteristics from Powers can be bought 

as affecting primary values, affecting secondary 

values, or not affecting totals, the Total column 

might contain a split value (for example, 13/23). 

In such cases, the value to the left of the / is the 

primary value (the total of the Value column plus 

any Characteristics from Powers bought as affecting 

the primary value). The value to the right of the 

/ is the secondary value (the total of the primary 

value plus any Characteristics from Powers bought 

as affecting the secondary value). For example, a 

character with a basic STR of 10 and a STR of 20 in 

his superheroic form (bought as a Power with the 

Only in Alternate Identity Limitation and affecting 

the secondary value) would have 10/20 in the Total 

column. 

The Roll column shows the Characteristic Roll 

associated with that Characteristic (if any). 

The Notes column shows other information 

related to the Characteristic. For example, the Notes 

entry for INT displays the character’s PER Roll. 

Finally, the bottom line on the tab shows 

the total number of Character Points spent on 

Characteristics with the total points spent on the 

character after it in parentheses. 

CHARACTERISTIC MAxIMA 

For HERO System Fifth Edition templates, 

the Characteristics tab also contains a checkbox 

labeled Normal Characteristic Maxima and a 

dropdown list with options for age restrictions. 

These appear beneath the Characteristic list but 

above the total line. 

The availability of the Normal Characteristic 

Maxima checkbox and its effect on the character


depends upon the current template and campaign 

rules. 

When using the standard Fifth Edition Normal 

or Heroic templates, checking the Normal 

Characteristic Maxima box adds a 0 point 

Normal Characteristic Maxima Disadvantage to 

the Disadvantages tab. If you also select an age 

restriction, the appropriate Age Disadvantage is 

added as well. 

When using the standard Fifth Edition 

Superheroic template, checking the Normal 

Characteristic Maxima box adds a basic 20 point 

Normal Characteristic Maxima Disadvantage to 

the Disadvantages tab. If you also select an age 

restriction, an appropriate Age Disadvantage is 

added as well. 

The campaign rules described in the “Campaign 

Rules” section on page 36 can specify whether or not 

the Normal Characteristic Maxima checkbox is 

automatically checked on Fifth Edition templates 

and whether or not the user can change this 

selection. 

The Normal Characteristic Maxima checkbox 

is never available (and cannot be made available by 

the campaign rules) with Fifth Edition Vehicle, Base, 

Automaton, Computer, or AI templates. 

HERO System Sixth Edition has implements 

characteristic maxima differently. There is 

no Normal Characteristic Maxima or Age 

Complication. Instead, GMs, who want to use 

Character Maxima for their campaigns, should 

select an appropriate set of maxima for each 

campaign. Hero Designer 6th Edition supports this 

approach by allowing you to specify these Character 

Maxima in the campaign rules. See the “Campaign 

Rules” section on page 36 for details. 

Ability And Complications 

Tabs 

The ability and Complications tabs let you add 

abilities and Complications to a character. These 

tabs all have a layout similar to the Powers tab 

shown in the screenshot on the next page. 

On the left side is the character sheet pane. This 

pane shows the items purchased for the character in 

roughly the same format as they will appear when 

you export the character. At the top of this pane is 

the character sheet title bar. This title bar contains 

the name of the tab followed by the number of 

Character Points spent on this tab with the total 

points spent on the character and the maximum 

points available in parentheses after it. 

Beneath the pane’s toolbar is the character sheet 

menu bar. This menu bar features the Edit, List, 

and Sorting menus as well as tab-specific menus 

such as the Power Frameworks menu shown in the 

screenshot. 

On the right side is the available item pane. 

This pane displays the items that can be currently 

added to the character. It has two subtabs. One 

shares the name of the overall tab (for example, 

Powers for the Powers tab) and the other is the 

Prefabs subtab. The first subtab displays the items 

defined in the current character template (along 

with symbols similar to those used in the HERO 

System Fifth Edition and HERO System Sixth Edition 

rulebooks to indicate the item’s potential for abuse). 

The second subtab displays the items defined in any 

currently loaded Prefabs. 

At bottom of the available item pane are the 

Select and Define buttons. The Select button selects 

the currently highlighted item for purchase and 

brings up the appropriate dialog while the Define 

button shows the definition of the highlighted item. 

To select a given tab, click the tab name or type 

Alt-1 to select the first tab, Alt-2 to select the second 

tab, and so forth. 

The following sections describe each of the tabs 

and their tab-specific features. 

SKILLS TAB 

From the Skills tab, you can purchase Skills 

(except Martial Arts, which has its own tab). The 

character sheet menu bar for this tab contains a 

Skill Enhancers menu in addition to the standard 

Edit, List, and Sorting menus. 

PERKS TAB 

From the Perks tab, you can purchase Perks. 

The character sheet menu bar for this tab contains 

a Perk Enhancers menu in addition to the standard 

Edit, List, and Sorting menus. Technically, there 

is no such thing as a Perk Enhancer in the HERO 

System rules, but because the Well-Connected Skill 

Enhancer actually affects the cost of Perks rather 

than Skills, it is listed on this menu. 

WHERE ARE 

DISADvANTAgES? 

As you may or may 

not know, Hero System 

Sixth Edition replaced 

Disadvantages with 

Complications in an effort 

to better describe their 

purpose in the game. 

However, the process 

of adding and editing 

Complications is exactly 

the same as adding and 

editing Disadvantages. 

This manual simply refer 

to Complications and 

the Complications tab. 

Unless otherwise, noted, 

this information applies 

equally to Disadvantages 

and the Disadvantages 

tab in HERO System Fifth 

Edition templates.


TALENTS TAB 

From the Talents tab, you can purchase Talents. 

The character sheet menu bar for this tab contains 

only the standard Edit, List, and Sorting menus. 

MARTIAL ARTS TAB 

From the Martial Arts tab, you can purchase 

Martial Maneuvers, including Weapon Elements 

and extra Damage Classes. The character sheet 

menu bar for this tab contains only the standard 


POWERS TAB 

From the Powers tab, you can purchase Powers 

including Characteristics, Skills, Perks, and Talents 

bought as Powers. As shown in the screen shot 

below, the character sheet menu bar for this tab 

contains the Power Frameworks menu in addition 

to the standard Edit, List, and Sorting menus. 

COMPLICATIONS TAB 

From the Complications tab, you can assign 

Complications to the character. The character sheet 

menu bar for this tab contains only the standard 


For HERO System Fifth Edition templates, this 

is called the Disadvantages tab and is used to assign 

Disadvantages to the character. 

EqUIPMENT TAB 

The Equipment tab only appears when it is 

enabled by the current campaign rules, as described 

in the “Campaign Rules” section on page 36. 

When available, you can use this tab for 

assigning equipment that does not cost Character 

Points. In general, the Equipment tab is identical 

to the Powers tab. However, when you purchase 

items on the Equipment tab, the point cost of those 

items is not included in the character’s totals and 

you have the ability to specify equipment-specific 

information about each, such as price and weight. 

Superheroic characters who must pay points for 

their equipment purchase it on the Powers tab. 

SEPARATINg TABS FROM MAIN WINDOW 

At times, you may find it useful to be able to 

view more than one Hero Designer tab at a time. 

You can do this by tearing off (that is, separating) 

tabs from the main window. 

To separate a tab, first select desired tab and then 

select Tear Off Selected Tab from the Tools menu. 

The selected tab is removed from the main Hero 

Designer window and appears as a separate window 

that can be moved and resized on its own. To return 

the tab to the main Hero Designer window, simply 

close the window containing the separated tab.


ADDINg ABILITIES AND 

COMPLICATIONS 

At the core of the HERO System is the way you 

can add abilities (Skills, Perks, Talents, Martial 

Maneuvers, and Powers) to a character and balance 

those abilities with Complications. In addition, 

you can customize these abilities with Adders and 

Modifiers to create specific effects. 

For details on adding Lists and Frameworks, see 

the “Working With Lists And Frameworks” section 

on page 25. 

Regardless of the ability or Complication with 

which you are working, the basic procedure for 

adding, deleting, or moving it is the same. 

Adding An Item 

To add an item to the character, you should first 

set where on the character sheet pane you want 

the item to appear. Where the new item appears 

depends primarily on whether or not an entry on 

that pane is currently highlighted. Clicking once 

on an item toggles it between highlighted and not 

highlighted. 

If an item on the character sheet pane is 

highlighted, the new item is inserted either before 

or after the highlighted item depending on whether 

the Insert button is currently set to Insert Before 

or Insert After. Clicking the Insert button toggles it 

between the two values. 

If no item on the character sheet pane is 

highlighted, the new item is inserted either at the 

top or end of the character sheet pane depending on 

whether the Insert button is currently set to Insert 

At Top or Insert At End. Clicking the Insert button 

toggles it between the two values. 

Then, to add an item, select the item from the 

available item list shown in the right pane. You 

can do this either by double clicking on the item 

or by highlighting the item and clicking Select or 

pressing Enter. 

The dialog for the selected item appears. Fill 

in the dialog as appropriate (see the “Attaching 

Adders And Modifiers” section on page 12 as well as 

the section on the type of ability or Complication 

being added) and click OK. A new item including 

all values and options specified in the dialog and 

all attached Adders and Modifiers appears on the 

character sheet pane in the desired location. 

You can also add an item to the character sheet 

by right-clicking on the item in the available item 

list. When you add an item in this way, no dialog 

appears and the item is added at its default value. 

When adding an item to the character sheet 

pane, a Duplicate Purchase dialog may appear 

if you already added that item to the character, 

asking if you want to purchase the item again. 

Click Yes to add the item again. Click No to not 

add the item. The Duplicate Purchase dialog 

appears for multiple purchases of virtually all Skills, 

Perks, Talents, and Martial Maneuvers. It also 

appears for multiple purchases of Powers that are 

generally only purchased once for a given character. 

It does not appear at all for duplicate purchases 

of Complications. Whether or not this warning 

appears can be set on the Preferences dialog as 

described in the “Application Preferences” section 

on page 33. 

Deleting An Item 

To delete an item from the character sheet pane, 

highlight the item and either click the Delete button 

or press the Delete key. You can also delete an item 

by editing it (see “Editing An Item” below) and 

clicking the Delete button on the item’s dialog box. 

Finally, you can simply right-click on the item and 

select Delete from the pop-up menu that appears. 

Whichever method you choose, a prompt 

appears asking you to confirm the deletion. Click 

Yes to delete the item. Click No to change your 

mind and not delete it. You can turn off the need for 

confirming deletions on the Preferences dialog as 

described in the “Application Preferences” section 

on page 33. 

Moving An Item 

You can rearrange the order of items on the 

character sheet pane by moving items up or down. 

To move an item, highlight it and click either the 

Down-Arrow button or the Up-Arrow button. As 

you might expect, the Down-Arrow button moves 

the item down the pane and the Up-Arrow button 

moves the item up the pane. 

As an alternative, you can move an item up or 

down the character sheet pane by right-clicking 

on the item and selecting either Move Up or Move 

Down from the pop-up menu that appears. 

You can also rearrange items using the 

techniques described in the “Copying, Cutting, and 

Pasting” section on page 15 or by sorting as described 

on page 16. 

Editing An Item 

After adding an item to the character sheet pane, 

you may decide there is something that you want 

to change about it. You can edit such an item by 

double clicking on the item’s Cost or END, by rightclicking 

on the item and selecting Edit from the 

pop-up menu that appears, or by highlighting the 

item and clicking Edit or pressing Enter. 

The dialog for the item to be edited appears. 

Make your changes and click OK. The character 

sheet pane is updated to show the edited item. 

Naming An Item 

Dialogs for all items (except Complications) 

include a Name field. This field is the name by 

which the fully constructed item is known. For


MODIFIERS AND 

TEMPLATES 

The actual lists of 

Modifiers shown in the 

Select Modifiers dialog 

depend are limited to the 

Modifiers defined in the 

current character template. 

Not all templates define all 

Modifiers. For example, 

the STR Minimum 

Limitation is not available 

in the Superheroic 

template because it is 

inappropriate for the 

superhero genre. 

example, if Captain Righteous’ Telekinesis is known 

as the “Hand of Righteousness” you would enter 

that in the Name field of the Telekinesis dialog. 

This name appears in italics at the beginning of the 

item’s entry on the character sheet pane. 

Changing The Text Of An Item 

When you add an item, the descriptive text 

for that item appears in the second column of 

the character sheet pane. This column is labeled 

appropriately with the type of ability displayed 

on the tab. For example, it is labeled Power on 

the Powers tab and Skill on the Skills tab. This 

descriptive text is editable. 

To edit an item’s descriptive text, double-click 

on that text. You can now edit it. When you are 

finished editing, press Enter. The edited text is now 

displayed in blue and will not change regardless of 

any changes you make to the ability or its Modifiers. 

At any point, you can reset the descriptive text to 

the item’s normal display by deleting all the edited 

descriptive text and pressing Enter. 

Attaching Adders And 

Modifiers 

You can customize any ability by attaching 

Adders and Modifiers. There are four types of 

Adders and Modifiers: ability-specific Adders, 

standard Modifiers (that is, Advantages and 

Limitations), Custom Modifiers, and Custom 

Adders. Regardless of type, you attach all Adders 

and Modifiers using the ability’s dialog. Each 

ability’s dialog has a large text area that displays 

available ability-specific Adders as well as any other 

Adders and Modifiers you have attached. 

Some Adders and Modifiers have value selector 

boxes or dropdown lists that you can use to set 

details of the Adder or Modifier. Also, remember 

you can edit the text of an Adder or Modifier to 

appear however you would like on the character 

sheet pane. 

In addition, if an Adder or Modifier has a blue 

question mark near their cost, clicking on the 

question mark brings up a definition for the Adder 

or Modifier. 

As you attach, edit, and remove Adders and 

Modifiers, Hero Designer automatically adjusts the 

Real and Active Cost displayed for the ability. 

Additionally, when you attach a Modifier to an 

ability, a Display Active Points checkbox is added 

to the ability’s dialog. Checking this box includes 

the Active Points in an ability in that’s ability’s 

display on the character sheet pane. 

For details on using Adders and Modifiers with 

Lists and Frameworks, see the “Working With Lists 

And Frameworks” section on page 25. 

ABILITy-SPECIFIC ADDERS 

Several abilities have Adders that are specific to 

that ability. Entries for these Adders always appear 

on the ability’s dialog. To attach one of these Adders 

to the ability, check the box next to it. To remove an 

Adder, uncheck its box. 

STANDARD MODIFIERS 

Standard Modifiers include Advantages and 

Limitations that you can attach to almost any 

ability. To add a standard Modifier, click the Add 

Modifier… button. The Select Modifiers dialog 

appears. 

This dialog features five selectable lists: 

Advantages, Limitations, Recently Selected, 

Unavailable Advantages, and Unavailable 

Limitations. The Advantages and Limitations 

lists display the current available (see the “Modifier 

Intelligence” sidebar on page 13) Modifiers of 

those types. The Recently Selected list displays, 

in alphabetical order, up to the last 40 Modifiers 

(including the details you specified for each) 

you have assigned to abilities. This makes it easy 

to assign exactly the same Modifier to multiple 

abilities across multiple characters. The Recently 

Selected list is preserved when you exit Hero 

Designer. Finally, the Unavailable Advantages 

and Unavailable Limitations lists display those 

Advantages and Limitations that are currently 

unavailable due to Modifier intelligence. While you 

cannot add these Modifiers to the current ability, 

you can see why a given Modifier is unavailable by 

either or double-clicking on it or by highlighting it 

and clicking the View Reason button.


If you have turned off Modifier intelligence 

in the Preferences dialog as described in the 

“Application Preferences” section on page 33, 

the Unavailable Advantages and Unavailable 

Limitations lists are renamed Non-Recommended 

Advantages and Non-Recommended Limitations 

and the Modifiers in these lists are available to 

attach to the ability. 

To add a Modifier from any list, either double 

click on the Modifier or highlight it and click Select. 

Once selected, a dialog for the Modifier appears. 

A Modifier dialog sometimes includes Adders 

and multipliers of its own. These Adders and 

multipliers adjust the Modifier’s value. For example, 

a +½ Adder adds +½ to the Modifier’s value, while a 

x2 multiplier doubles that value. 

The Comments field lets you enter text to 

appear in parentheses with the Modifier value on 

the character sheet. Fill out the dialog and click OK. 

The Modifier appears at the bottom of the Modifier 

list for the ability with a checked box next to it and 

the word Edit in blue near its cost. 

After adding a Modifier, you are returned to 

the Select Modifiers dialog so you can add more 

Modifiers. When you are finished adding Modifiers 

to an ability, click Done. 

To edit a Modifier, click on the word Edit. 

To remove a Modifier, uncheck the box next to 

it. The next time you edit the item on the character 

sheet pane, the Modifier will not be listed. 

CUSTOM MODIFIERS 

Custom Modifiers let you add Advantages or 

Limitations that are not defined in the current 

character template. 

To add a Custom Modifier, click the Add 

Modifier button and when the Select Modifiers 

dialog appears, click the Custom Modifier button. 

The Custom Modifier dialog appears. 

Edit the text “Custom Modifier” in the Display 

field to the name you want the Advantage or 

Limitation to have and set the value of the Modifier 

using the value selector box 

in the Value field. 

Negative values are 

Limitations; positive 

values are Advantages. 

Additionally, you can enter 

text in the Comments 

field. This text will appear 

in parentheses with the 

Modifier value on the 

character sheet pane. Click 

OK to add the Modifier to 

the current ability and you 

are returned to the Select 

Modifiers dialog so you can 

add more Modifiers. 

Custom Modifiers may 

be edited and removed 

in the same manner as 

Standard Modifiers. 

You can use Custom Modifiers to add new 

Advantages or Limitations from house rules or 

newer rules supplements that have not yet been 

incorporated into Hero Designer. They are also 

useful for adding versions of standard Modifiers 

with non-standard values. Finally, they be used 

to add a Modifier that is currently unavailable for 

the ability. Often, such Modifiers are unavailable 

because they would normally be illegal in 

the current circumstance (see the “Modifier 

Intelligence” sidebar) but may be needed because of 

an unusual ability construct. 

CUSTOM ADDERS 

Custom Adders adjust an ability’s Active Cost. 

They can be positive or negative. Positive Custom 

Adders increase the Active Cost, while negative 

Custom Adders decrease it. You can use Custom 

Adders for a variety of purposes. Possible uses 

include Adders specified in house rules, cost 

adjustments due to house rules or unusual ability 

constructs, or to represent reduced cost abilities 

(such as making a Skill into an Everyman Skill). 

To add a Custom Adder, click the Custom 

Adder button. An entry for the Custom Adder 

appears on the ability dialog with a checked box 

next to it. Edit the text “Custom Adder” to indicate 

what the Custom Adder represents and set the 

MODIFIER 

INTELLIgENCE 

When you try to attach a 

Modifier, Hero Designer 

lists only those Advantages 

and Limitations that 

are currently valid to be 

attached to the ability. 

For example, if the ability 

is not ranged, the No 

Range Limitation is not 

listed. Similarly, if the 

ability does not have an 

Endurance cost of 0, the 

Persistent Advantage is 

not available. However, 

if you add the Reduced 

Endurance Advantage 

to lower the END cost 

to zero, Persistent then 

becomes available. 

Modifier intelligence also 

prevents Modifiers that 

should be attached only 

once from being attached 

multiple times. 

Other aspects of Modifier 

intelligence, like mutual 

exclusivity, affect abilityspecific 

Modifiers and 

Adders. Attaching certain 

Modifiers and Adders 

prohibits attaching others. 

Once you attach one, any 

mutually exclusive Adders 

or Modifiers are grayed 

out. Removing that Adder 

or Modifier makes the 

others available again. 

If, due to house rules or 

unusual ability constructs, 

Modifier intelligence does 

not let you add a desired 

Modifier or Adder, you 

can use a Custom Modifier 

or Custom Adder and edit 

it appropriately. 

You can check to see if all 

Modifiers on a character 

are valid by selecting 

Valid all Modifiers on 

Character from the 

Current Character 

menu. A dialog showing 

the offending Modifiers 

appears and all abilities 

with offending Modifiers 

appear in red on the 

character sheet pane. 

You can turn off Modifier 

Intelligence from the 

Preferences dialog 

as described in the 

“Application Preferences” 

section on page 33. This 

also turns off the ability to 

validate all Modifiers.


SPECIAL EFFECTS 

The following standard 

special effects are available 

for all Hero Designer 

abilities: 

■ Acid 

■ Alien 

■ Air/Wind 

■ Animal Body 

■ Control Chi 

■ Cosmic Energy 

■ Cyberkinesis 

■ Darkness 

■ Density Alteration 

■ Dimensional 

Manipulation 

■ Earth/Stone 

■ Electricity 

■ Emotion Control 

■ Fire/Heat 

■ Force 

■ Gravity 

■ Ice/Cold 

■ Illusion 

■ Kinetic Energy 

■ Light 

■ Luck 

■ Magic/Mystic 

■ Magnetism 

■ Martial Arts 

■ Matter Manipulation 

■ Mental/Psionic 

■ Metamorphic 

■ Mutant 

■ Precognition 

■ Radiation 

■ Serum Based 

■ Shape Alteration 

■ Size Alteration 

■ Sleep/Dream 

■ Solar/Celestial 

■ Sonic 

■ Speedster 

■ Strength/Toughness 

■ Stretching 

■ Telekinetic 

■ Teleportation 

■ Time 

■ Vibration 

■ Water 

■ Weather 

■ Wood/Plant 

■ Miscellaneous 

value of the Adder using the value selector box. To 

remove a Custom Adder, uncheck the box next to 

it. The next time you edit the item on the character 

sheet pane, the Adder will not be listed. 

Copying, Cutting, And 

Pasting Modifiers 

Sometimes an ability has a set of Modifiers that 

you would to copy or move to one or more other 

abilities or to a List or Framework. You can do this 

by right-clicking on the item on the character sheet 

pane that has the modifiers you want to copy or 

move and selecting the appropriate item from the 

pop-up menu that appears. 

To copy an ability’s Modifiers but still leave 

them attached to the original ability, select Copy 

Modifiers from the menu. To remove an ability’s 

Modifiers so that they can be moved to another 

ability, select Cut Modifiers from the menu. 

Once you have cut or copied a set of Modifiers, 

right-click on the item (or List or Framework) to 

which you want to add those Modifiers, and select 

Paste Modifier from the pop-up menu that appears. 

Any Modifiers that are valid to be added to the 

target item (or List or Framework) are added. 

Cost Multipliers 

When the Cost Multipliers checkbox of the 

Rules tab on the View/Edit Rules dialog (see the 

“Campaign Rules” section on page 36) is checked, a 

Cost Multiplier button appears on each ability’s 

dialog. When you click this button, the Cost 

Multiplier dialog appears. 

On this dialog, you can specify a value by which 

the cost of the ability will be multiplied. If you want 

to double the normal cost of the ability, you would 

enter “2” in the Cost Multiplier field. Similarly, 

if you want the cost to be a third of normal, you 

would enter “.333333” in that field. 

As noted on the dialog, cost multipliers are not 

officially part of the HERO System Fifth Edition or 

the HERO System Sixth Edition rules. However, they 

do have their uses in optional rules. At least one 

Fantasy Hero magic system suggests charging onethird 

normal cost for spells. Additionally, individual 

GMs may find this feature useful for implementing 

their campaigns’ house rules. 

Assigning Special Effects 

Special effects can play a big part in many HERO 

System games and Hero Designer lets you quickly 

and easily assign a special effect to each ability. To 

do so, use the Special Effect dropdown list on the 

ability’s dialog to select the desired special effect. 

See the “Standard Special Effects” sidebar for a list 

of the available special effects. 

If your desired special effect is not available in 

the dropdown list, you can type your special effect 

directly into the Special Effect field. 

Assigned special effects will not appear on the 

character sheet pane and will not normally be 

exported unless the Export Format used specifically 

exports them. 

Attaching Notes 

Occasionally, it is handy to add extra notes to 

an item’s description. To do so, click the Create 

Notes… button on the ability’s dialog when adding 

or editing an item. The Notes for… dialog appears. 

On this dialog, enter the notes you want to 

attach in the text box. If you do not want the notes 

to appear on the character sheet pane, and thus, not 

on an exported version of the character, uncheck 

the Include in Print Out box. Click Close to close 

the dialog. 

When an item has a note attached, the Create 

Notes… button changes to an Edit Notes… button, 

which lets you edit the attached notes. If you delete 

all the text on the Notes for… dialog, the Edit 

Notes… button reverts to a Create Notes… button. 

Possible uses for notes includes specifying 

additional information about the ability (such as the 

Sense Groups that can detect a Power), providing 

further details about Modifiers attached to the 

ability, and so forth. 

Associating Files 

Several HERO System abilities (most notably, 

the Follower and Vehicles & Bases Perks and the 

Duplication, Multiform, and Summon Powers) have 

costs which are based on another related HERO 

System character. Hero Designer provides two 

methods for dealing with such an ability. 

The first method is simply to enter the 

appropriate costs for the related character on the 

ability’s dialog. However, this means that any time


you make a change in the related character, you 

need to update the costs on the ability’s dialog. 

The second method is to directly associate the 

related character with the main character’s ability 

by clicking the Associate File… button on the 

ability’s dialog (see the Summon dialog above). 

A standard file selector dialog appears. Select the 

Hero Designer character file you wish to associate 

and click Associate Character. The ability’s dialog 

is updated with the information from the related 

character and the cost of the ability is calculated. 

Once you have associated a file with an ability, 

any changes you make to the associated file (and 

save) will be reflected on the ability’s dialog and in 

the ability’s cost. 

Also, once a file is associated with an ability, the 

Associate File… button is replaced with a Remove 

File Association button. Clicking this button 

removes the file association but leaves the last 

values received from the previously associated file. 

viewing An Ability’s 

Definition 

To view an ability’s definition, click the Define 

button on the ability’s dialog when adding or 

editing an item. Alternatively, you can right-click 

on an item on the character sheet and select Define 

from the pop-up menu that appears. In either case, 

a pop-up box appears showing the definition. Click 

anywhere on the box to dismiss it. Similarly, you 

can view the definition of a Modifier by clicking on 

the Define button of its dialog. 

When the Show Popup definitions in selection 

lists checkbox is checked on the Display tab of the 

Preferences dialog as described in the “Application 

Preferences” section on page 33, you can view an 

ability’s definition by simply moving your mouse 

over the ability’s name in a selection list. 

Copying, 

Cutting, And 

Pasting 

As discussed earlier, 

you can reorder items on 

the character sheet pane 

with the Down-Arrow and 

Up-Arrow buttons. These 

buttons work great if you 

are just moving items up 

or down a few positions. 

However, if you want to 

move an item freely to 

any point on the character 

sheet pane or even copy or 

move an item to another 

character, you can use the 

Edit menu on the character 

sheet menu bar. This menu 

has three items: Cut, Copy, 

and Paste. 

To remove an item from the character sheet pane 

and place it on the Hero Designer clipboard, select 

Cut. 

To copy an item (without removing it) from the 

character sheet and place it on the Hero Designer 

clipboard, select Copy. 

The Paste entry on the menu is only available if 

the current item on the Hero Designer clipboard 

can be added to the current tab. Normally, items 

copied or cut from a tab can only be added to that 

same tab (on any character). However, items from 

the Skills, Perks, Talents, Powers, and Equipment 

tabs can be added to the Powers or Equipment 

tabs. In addition, Skills, Perks, and Talents 

purchased as Powers or Equipment can be added to 

the Skills, Perks, and Talents tabs, respectively. 

Pasting an item to the character sheet pane of 

a tab works in the same way as adding an item. As 

described in the “Adding an Item” section on page 

11, you must first select where to paste the item on 

the character pane. This is based on whether or not 

an item on the pane is highlighted and the current 

setting of the Insert button. Then, select Paste 

from the Edit menu to add the item in the desired 

location. 

Alternatively, you can access this functionality 

by right-clicking on an item and selecting Cut, 

Copy, or Paste from the pop-up menu that appears. 

Note that once an item is on the Hero Designer 

clipboard, it remains there until another cut or 

copied item replaces it or you exit Hero Designer. 

Thus, you can cut or copy an item from one 

character and paste it on another. 

Items placed on the Hero Designer clipboard 

are also placed on the system clipboard and can be 

pasted into other applications.


UNUSUAL 

EvERyMAN SKILLS 

Everyman Skills vary from 

campaign to campaign 

and not all of them 

are the standard free 

8- Familiarity that Hero 

Designer handles easily. 

For example, the sample 

Everyman Skill list for 

modern campaigns in 

the HERO System Sixth 

Edition rules includes a 

Professional Skill at 11and 

Transport Familiarity: 

Small Motorized Ground 

Vehicle. Both are nonstandard, 

so you must 

use another method to 

represent these free Skills. 

That method is Custom 

Adders. For each of these 

Everyman Skills, purchase 

the Skill normally 

and attach a negative 

Custom Adder to bring 

the cost down to 0 and 

edit “Custom Adder” to 

“Everyman”. 

When creating several 

characters for a campaign 

that has unusual Everyman 

Skills, you may find useful 

to create a Prefab for the 

campaign’s Everyman 

Skills. Prefabs are 

described in the “Prefabs 

And Package Deals” 

chapter on page 40. 

Sorting 

In addition to being able to rearrange items on 

the character sheet pane by moving items up and 

down or by cutting, copying, and pasting, you can 

also sort all the items on the character sheet pane of 

a given tab. 

To sort the items on a tab’s character sheet, use 

the Sorting menu from the character sheet menu 

bar. First select either Ascending or Descending 

to specify whether the items are to be sort in 

ascending or descending order. When you select 

one these two menu items, you are then presented 

with four options for sorting the items on the 

character sheet: by Type, by Display, by Real Cost, 

and by Active Cost. 

If you select by Real Cost or by Active Cost, the 

items on the character sheet are sorted in ascending 

or descending numerical order based on the chosen 

cost. If you select by Display, the items are sorted in 

ascending or descending alphabetical order based 

on the text displayed for each item. Finally, if you 

select by Type, the items are sorted in ascending 

or descending alphabetical order based on default 

Display field for each item. For example, all Blasts 

will be sorted together. 

If the character sheet contains any lists or 

Power Frameworks, the items within each list or 

Framework are also sorted 

according to the selected 

criteria. 

Finally, if the sort being 

performed does not affect 

an item, it is not moved. 

This means, for example, if 

you first sort Complications 

in descending order by 

their Active Costs and then 

resort in ascending order 

by their type, you get a list 

of Complications grouped 

by type (in alphabetical 

order) with the individual 

Complications within each 

grouping appearing in 

descending order of their 

Active Costs. 

Because there is no way 

to undo a sorting operation, 

you should always save a 

character before performing 

any sort. This allows you 

to easily return to the unsorted version if the sort 

yields undesired results. 

Skills 

In general, Skills are added just like any other 

ability. One exception to this is those Skills which 

do not have any additional options. Normally, such 

Skills are added automatically as though you had 

right-clicked on the Skill name. This ability can be 

disabled from the Preferences dialog as described 

in the “Application Preferences” section on page 33. 

If you are adding a Skill which features 

additional options, or you are editing a Skill, the 

dialog for that Skill appears. 

As you can see from the Acrobatics dialog 

shown below, this dialog may include several fields. 

The Display field shows how the Skill is labeled 

on the character sheet pane, that is, it is the actual 

name of the Skill. This field is completely editable. 

For example, in a Star Hero campaign, your GM 

might have added a separate Zero-G Acrobatics 

Skill that works just like Acrobatics but in a zero-G 

environment. The easiest way to add such a Skill to 

a character using Hero Designer is to simply add the 

Acrobatics Skill and edit the Display field to read 

“Zero-G Acrobatics”. When adding new Skills in 

this manner, the Power Skill is a good choice to edit 

because it allows you to choose which Characteristic 

the Skill is based on. 

The Characteristic field shows the Characteristic 

on which the Skill Roll is based. For Skills that can 

be based on one of a variety of Characteristics (for 

example, Knowledge Skill, Professional Skill and 

Power), this field contains a dropdown list showing 

the available Characteristics (as well as possibly 

GENERAL). From this list, you can choose the 

Characteristic on which to base the Skill Roll. If you 

choose GENERAL, the Skill Roll has a base of 11-.


The Levels field contains a value selector box 

that lets you purchase additional +1s to the Skill 

Roll. This field starts at 0 to indicate to the base Skill 

Roll. 

For Skills that can be purchased as a 8- 

Familiarity, the Skill dialog contains a checkbox 

labeled Familiarity Only. Check this box to 

indicate that you only want a Familiarity with the 

Skill. When you do so, the Levels field is grayed out 

and an additional checkbox may appear, labeled 

Everyman Skill. If the Skill is an Everyman Skill in 

the character’s campaign (that is, Familiarity with 

the Skill is free), check this box. 

Similarly, if the Skill can be purchased as a 10- 

Proficiency according to the optional Proficiency 

rules in HERO System Sixth Edition, the Skill dialog 

includes a Proficiency checkbox. Check this box to 

purchase the Skill as a Proficiency. 

If you only want to purchase bonuses with a Skill 

(as used in several racial Templates in Fantasy Hero, 

for example), check the Skill Levels Only checkbox. 

When you do so, the Levels field represents the 

number of bonus levels with the Skill. 

The dialog for some Skills may have additional 

fields that are tailored to that Skill. For example, 

Knowledge Skill has a Type field with a dropdown 

list of Groups, People, Places, and Things that lets 

you identify the type of knowledge the Skill covers. 

For this Skill, choosing an item from that list 

might change the value shown in the Display field. 

Choosing People changes the Display field to CuK 

(Cultural Knowledge); choosing Places changes 

Display to AK (Area Knowledge); choosing Groups 

or Things leaves Display as KS. The item chosen 

from this list also changes the label for the field 

where you enter the field of knowledge to which the 

Skill applies. 

Some Skills (for example, Gambling, Survival, 

and Transport Familiarity) have categories and 

possibly subcategories as well. These categories and 

subcategories appear as ability-specific Adders in 

the Adders section of the dialog and are added and 

removed as described in the “Attaching Adders and 

Modifiers” section on page 12. Because categories 

and subcategories are implemented as Adders, you 

can purchase additional unlisted ones as Custom 

Adders. 

For Skills with subcategories, the cost of 

purchasing subcategories maxes out at the cost 

of the category under which they are listed. 

For example, the Card Games category for the 

Gambling Skill costs 2 points. It has 5 subcategories 

that cost 1 point each. Regardless of how many of 

the subcategories of Card Games are purchased, 

they will never cost more than a total of 2 points 

(the cost to purchase the category). 

There are also some Skills which do not have 

categories or subcategories in the HERO System 

Fifth Edition and HERO System Sixth Edition rules, 

but have been expanded in other HERO System 

books. For example, Computer Programming 

was expanded in Star Hero to feature a range of 

categories and subcategories. When you purchase 

such a Skill without selecting any categories or 

subcategories, Hero Designer uses the cost of the 

original version. Otherwise, it uses the costs of the 

expanded version. 

Finally, the Combat Driving and Combat 

Piloting Skills, as described in the HERO System 

Fifth Edition and HERO System Sixth Edition 

rules, grant a free Transport Familiarity with an 

appropriate 1-point subcategory of vehicle. When 

you purchase Transport Familiarity with one of 

the appropriate subcategories, the total cost of 

the Transport Familiarity is reduced by 1 point to 

account for this. 

If the cost of a Skill as determined by Hero 

Designer differs from what you think it should 

be because of house rules used in the character’s 

campaign, you can use a Custom Adder to adjust 

the cost. When you do so, you should edit “Custom 

Adder” to something appropriate. 

Skill Enhancers can also affect the cost of a Skill. 

Because Hero Designer implements Skill Enhancers 

using Lists, they are discussed in the “Skill and Perk 

Enhancers” section on page 29. 

CUSTOM SKILLS 

The previous section showed how you could edit 

an existing Skill’s Display field as a way to add a 

new Skill. Another method of adding new Skills is 

Custom Skills 

Custom Skill appears in the available item list on 

the right pane of the Skills tab. You can add it to a 

character like any other Skill. 

On the Custom Skill dialog, edit the Display 

field to indicate what you want the Skill to be 

called on the character sheet pane. Enter the full 

cost of the Skill using the value selector box in 

the Cost field and the Skill Roll using the value 

selector box in the Roll field. If the Skill does not 

LANgUAgE 

FAMILIARITy 

CHART 

Hero Designer, by default, 

does not use the Language 

Familiarity Chart from the 


and HERO System 6th 

Edition rules to calculate 

the cost of Languages. 

However, you can enable 

the use of this chart in 

the current campaign 

rules as described in the 

“Campaign Rules” section 

on page 36. 

When the Language 

Familiarity Chart is 

enabled, you must define 

a native language. If you 

do not do so, you will be 

penalized 1 point for not 

having at least a 1-point 

similarity with the first 

Language you purchase.


have a roll, enter 0. If the 

Skill uses categories and 

subcategories, enter them as 

Custom Adders, editing the 

name appropriately. 

The best use for Custom 

Skills is adding new Skills 

with an unusual cost 

structure. If a new Skill has 

the same cost structure as 

an existing Skill, it is best to 

use the method of editing 

the existing Skill’s Display 

field. 

Perks 

When you add a Perk 

to a character, the dialog 

for that Perk appears. In 

general, the dialogs for Perks are very simple and 

easy to fill out. 

The Display field shows the name of the Perk 

and is fully editable. The other fields on Perk dialogs 

are very straightforward. They are used for things 

such as setting the point value and roll (if any) for 

the Perk and providing additional details about the 

Perk (for example, the name of a Contact). Some, 

such as the Contact dialog, feature Perk-specific 

Adders used to provide additional information that 

affect the cost of the Perk. In a similar vein, the 

Fringe Benefit Perk uses Adders to represent each of 

the individual benefits that can be bought as part of 

the Perk. To add a benefit not listed, use a Custom 

Adder. For example, if the campaign has the Fringe 

Benefit “Sanctioned Superhero” that costs 3 points, 

you would add a Custom Adder worth 3 points to 

the Fringe Benefit dialog and edit “Custom Adder” 

to read “Sanctioned Superhero”. 

The Well-Connected Skill Enhancer also affects 

the cost of Perks. Because Well-Connected only 

affects Perks, Hero Designer actually considers it a 

Perk Enhancer. Hero Designer implements Skill and 

Perk Enhancers using Lists. They are discussed in 

the “Skill and Perk Enhancers” section on page 29. 

CUSTOM PERKS 

Custom Perks are similar to Custom Skills in 

that you use them to add new Perks. Custom Perk 

appears in the available item list on the right pane 

of the Perks tab. You can add it to a character like 

any other Perk. 

On the Custom Perk dialog, edit the Display 

field to indicate what you want the Perk to be called 

on the character sheet pane. Enter the full cost of 

the Perk using the value selector box in the Cost 

field and the roll associated with the Perk using the 

value selector box in the Roll field. If the Perk does 

not have a roll, enter 0. 

Talents 

In general, Talents are added just like any other 

ability. One exception to this is those Talents which 

do not have any additional options. Normally, such 

Talents are added automatically as though you had 

right-clicked on the Talent name. This ability can be 

disabled from the Preferences dialog as described 

in the “Application Preferences” section on page 33. 

If you are adding a Talent which features 

additional options, or you are editing a Talent, the 

dialog for that Talent appears. 

The dialogs for Talents are very similar to those 

for Skills and Perks and can range from the simple 

to the complex. For example, because the Danger 

Sense Talent behaves similarly to other Senses, 

its dialog features the full list of Adders that are 

normally available to Enhanced Senses.


Finally, a note should be made about the Combat 

Luck Talent. Because Combat Luck provides PD 

and ED that you may want to include in your 

Defense Talents, its dialog has a Totaling Options 

field. This field is described in the “Characteristics 

From Powers” section on page 21. 

CUSTOM TALENTS 

Custom Talents are similar to Custom Skills 

and Custom Perks in that you use them to add new 

Talents. Custom Talent appears in the available item 

list on the right pane of the Talents tab. You can add 

it to a character like any other Talent. 

On the Custom Talent dialog, edit the Display 

field to indicate what you want the Talent to be 

called on the character 

sheet pane. Enter the full 

cost of the Talent using 

the value selector box in 

the Cost field and the roll 

associated with the Talent 

using the value selector 

box in the Roll field. If the 

Talent has no roll, enter 0. 

Martial Arts 

The available item list 

on the Martial Maneuvers 

subtab of the Martial Arts 

tab contains all the Martial 

Maneuvers defined in both 

the HERO System Fifth 

Edition and HERO System 

Sixth Edition rules as well as 

The Ultimate Martial Artist 

(for HERO System Fifth 

Edition) and HERO System 

Martial Arts (for HERO 

System Sixth Edition). It also 

includes Weapon Element 

and +1 Damage Class(es) 

with both hand-to-hand 

and ranged Maneuvers. 

When you add a Maneuver 

from this list to a character, the appropriate dialog 

appears. For the hand-to-hand and ranged Martial 

Maneuvers, the dialog is similar to the one shown 

below for Offensive Strike. 

The Display field contains the name of the 

Maneuver. This field can be edited if the Maneuver 

has a different name in the martial style being 

entered. For example, if you were entering the 

Boxing style, you would edit “Offensive Strike” to 

instead read “Hook”. 

The Type field contains a dropdown list that lets 

you choose whether the Maneuver is used with an 

empty hand or with a weapon. 

The Phase, OCV, and DCV fields show how 

many phases the Maneuver 

takes to perform, its OCV 

modifier, and its DCV 

modifier. 

The Effect field shows 

the effect of the Maneuver. 

This includes damage and 

other effects. Damage and 

STR-based effects indicated 

in this field include the 

base effect of the character’s 

STR plus any extra Damage 

Classes that apply to the 

Maneuver. They do not, 

however, include the base 

weapon damage, which can 

vary widely 

The dialog for ranged 

Martial Maneuvers


also includes a Range field which indicates the 

additional OCV modifier for using the Maneuver 

at range. 

For +1 HTH Damage Class(es) and +1 Ranged 

Damage Class(es), the dialog simply lets you choose 

the number of extra damage classes you want 

to purchase for that type of maneuver. As noted 

earlier, these extra damage classes are automatically 

included in the effects for appropriate maneuvers. 

The Weapon Element dialog simply lets you 

specify which weapons a style applies to. 

To purchase an entire Martial Arts style, 

separately purchase each 

of the Martial Maneuvers 

as well as any Weapon 

Element that applies to 

that style. Any Weapon 

Familiarities, Knowledge 

Skills, or other Skills that 

might be listed as part of 

the style are purchased 

from the Skills tab. 

Lists are a good way to 

organize the Maneuvers 

and Weapon Elements 

of a given style. Lists are 

described in the “Working 

with Lists and Frameworks” 

on page 25. 

Also, because Martial 

Arts styles are often used 

over and over again in 

different characters. This 

makes them a prime 

candidate for placing 

in Prefabs. Prefabs are 

described in the “Prefabs 

And Package Deals” chapter 

on page 40. 

CUSTOM MANEUvERS 

Custom Maneuvers 

let you add new Martial 

Maneuvers. Custom 

Maneuver appears in the 

available item list on the 

right pane of the Martial 

Arts tab. You can add it 

to a character like any 

other Martial Maneuver. 

The Custom 

Maneuver dialog features 

several fields describing 

the new Maneuver. By 

default, these fields are 

set to the values for the 

Basic Strike Maneuver. 

The Display field 

indicates the name of 

the Maneuver. Edit it 

from “Basic Strike” to the 

name desired. 

The Cost field features a value selector box 

that lets you set the cost in Character Points for 

the Maneuver. You can either pick an appropriate 

cost based on the costs of existing Maneuvers or 

calculate the cost using the rules for creating new 

Maneuvers given in The Ultimate Martial Artist 

(for HERO System Fifth Edition) and HERO System 

Martial Arts (for HERO System Sixth Edition) . 

The Phase field contains a dropdown list from 

which you can select how long it takes to perform 

the Maneuver.


Using Hero Designer ■ 21 

The OCV, DCV, and 

Range fields each feature 

a value selector box for 

setting the OCV modifier, 

DCV modifier, and ranged 

OCV modifier for the 

Maneuver. If the new 

Maneuver is not ranged, set 

the Range field to -1. 

Finally, the Effect field 

describes the effects of the 

Maneuver. Edit it from 

“Strike” to appropriate text 

that describes the effect. 

If the effect of the new 

Maneuver would normally 

be affected by extra Damage 

Classes, you should include 

those Damage Classes in 

the text that you enter to 

keep it consistent with other 

Maneuvers. 

Powers 

The available item list 

on the right pane of the 

Powers tab includes all 

appropriate Powers described in the HERO System 

Fifth Edition or HERO System Sixth Edition rules. 

It also has entries for adding Characteristics, Skills, 

Perks, Talents as Powers as well as entries for 

Compound Powers, Naked Modifiers, and Custom 

Powers. 

When you add a Power to a character, the dialog 

for that Power appears. Because of the complexity 

of Powers, the dialog for each Power is different and 

there is no way that this manual can describe all 

of them. However, most of the fields on a Power’s 

dialog should be easy to figure out if you review 

the Power’s description in the appropriate HERO 

System rulebook. 

The following sections cover some of the areas 

that require additional information. 

CHARACTERISTICS FROM POWERS 

Many Powers (including Characteristics bought 

as Powers) add to a character’s Characteristics. 

For example, Armor and Force Field in HERO 

System Fifth Edition and Resistant Protection in 

HERO System Sixth Edition increase PD and ED, 

while Fifth Edition Growth adds to STR, BODY, 

and STUN and Sixth Edition Growth adds to STR, 

CON, PRE, PD, ED, BODY, STUN, and Running. 

The dialogs for such Powers (like the Resistant 

Protection dialog above) have a Totaling Options 

field which contains a dropdown list. Normally, 

this dropdown has three options: Add to Primary 

Value, Add to Secondary Value, and Do Not 

Add to Totals. The Add to Primary Value option 

adds Characteristics granted by that Power to the 

primary values for those Characteristics. 

The primary value is either the only value shown 

in the Totals column for that Characteristic on 

the Characteristics tab, or if a secondary value 

also exists, it is the value to the left of the / in that 

column. The primary value of a Characteristic is 

normally in effect at all times. 

The Add to Secondary Value option adds 

any Characteristics granted by the Power to the 

secondary values for those Characteristics. The 

secondary value will be shown to the right of the / 

in the Totals column for that Characteristic on the 

Characteristics tab. Normally, the secondary value 

of a Characteristic represents a value that is only 

in effect some of the time. For example, if you have 

Characteristics bought with the Only In Heroic 

Identity Limitation, you would normally choose to 

have them added to the secondary value. 

The Do Not Add to Totals option does not add 

the Characteristics granted by the Power to any 

totals. These Characteristics only appear in the 

Power’s description on the character sheet pane. 

CHARACTERISTICS AS POWERS 

As well as the Totaling Options field discussed 

previously, the dialog for a Characteristic bought 

as a Power (including Running, Swimming, 

and Leaping which Hero Designer treats as 

Characteristics) also contains an Add Modifiers 

to Base Characteristics checkbox. If this box is 

checked, Hero Designer includes the value for 

the Characteristic from the Value column of the 

Characteristics tab when calculating the cost of any 

Modifiers attached to the Characteristic. 

For example, if a character has 13 INT in the 

Value column of the Characteristics tab and 

purchases an additional 10 INT as a Power with 

BUyINg SPD AS A 

POWER 

When purchasing SPD as 

a Power, it is important to 

note that you can only buy 

it in full increments of +1 

for 10 points. You cannot 

buy fractional SPD. 

If you are creating a 

character using a HERO 

System Sixth Edition 

template, this is really not 

relevant. However, it does 

have some implications 

if you are a creating a 

character using a HERO 


template. 

For example, suppose 

a character has a DEX 

of 13/25 and you want 

the character to have a 

SPD of 3/5. The primary 

SPD of 3 is bought on 

the Characteristics tab 

at a cost of 7 Character 

Points. This means that the 

secondary SPD has a base 

value of 4.5 (1 + 2.8 + .7) 

which, for all purposes, is 

treated as SPD 4. You need 

to buy another full point of 

SPD as a Power (and add 

it to the secondary value) 

with an Active Cost of 10 

points to get a secondary 

SPD of 5. 

Some HERO System Fifth 

Edition campaigns have 

a house rule that lets you 

buy fractional SPD as a 

Power. In such campaigns, 

you would only need to 

buy .5 SPD as a Power for 

an Active Cost of 5 points 

to raise the secondary 

SPD to 5. To do this in 

Hero Designer, you would 

purchase the full 1 point 

of SPD and then use a 

negative Custom Adder 

to reduce the Active Cost 

to simulate purchasing 

fractional SPD.


TARgETINg AND 

NONTARgETINg 

SENSES 

Sense-Affecting Powers 

like Flash and Invisibility 

have different costs for 

affecting Targeting and 

Nontargeting Senses. 

The HERO System Fifth 

Edition and HERO System 

Sixth Edition templates 

designate the following 

Senses as Targeting Senses: 

■ Active Sonar 

■ Infrared Perception 

■ Mind Scan 

■ Nightvision 

■ Normal Sight 

■ Radar 

■ Spatial Awareness 

■ Ultraviolet Perception 

Also, HERO System 

Fifth Edition templates 

designate the following as 

a Targeting Sense: 

■ N-Ray Perception 

The Sight Group is the 

only Targeting Sense 

Group. All other Senses 

and Sense Groups are 

Nontargeting. 

In campaigns with other 

Targeting Senses or 

Sense Groups, you must 

purchase Powers that affect 

those Senses or Sense 

Groups as affecting one of 

the above Targeting Senses 

or the Sight Group. You 

would then edit the sense 

name to reflect the desired 

Targeting Sense or Sense 

Group. 

In campaign where any of 

the Targeting Senses above 

or the Sight Group are 

Nontargeting, you must 

purchase Powers that affect 

those Senses as affecting 

one of the normally 

Nontargeting Senses or 

Sense Groups. You would 

then edit the name of the 

Sense or Sense Group 

appropriately. 

A more complete solution 

for changing Targeting 

Senses and Sense Groups 

is to create a custom 

character template. Details 

on creating and editing 

character templates can be 

found in the “Character 

Templates” chapter on 

page 43. 

Add Modifiers to Base Characteristics checked, 

any Modifiers that are added to the 13 INT bought 

as a Power will have their cost calculated as if 

bought on 13 INT (an effective Active Cost of 

13 points). The whole cost of such Modifiers is 

included in the cost of the Characteristic on the 

Powers tab. 

This technique can be used to apply Modifiers 

to just the base Characteristic value. For example, 

suppose a character has a 25 STR in the Value 

column of the Characteristics tab and you want to 

purchase a +1/2 Reduced Endurance Advantage 

to reduce it to an END cost of 0. You can do this 

by purchasing 0 STR as a Power, checking Add 

Modifiers to Base Characteristics, and attaching 

the Reduced Endurance Advantage. 

COMPOUND POWERS 

Compound Powers are two or more Powers 

attached together to form a single Power construct. 

Compound Powers can represent partially limited 

Powers, linked Powers in a Power Framework, 

and a variety of similar 

constructs. When you add 

a Compound Power, the 

Compound Power dialog 

appears. 

This dialog differs from 

most ability dialogs in 

that it displays a miniature 

version of the character 

sheet pane and features a 

different set of buttons. 

To add a Power to the 

Compound Power, click 

the Add button. A list of 

available Powers appears. 

Select the Power that you 

want to add from this list. 

The dialog for the selected 

Power appears. Fill out 

this dialog and attach 

Adders and Modifiers in 

the same way you would 

for any other Power. Click 

OK when you are done and the Power description 

appears on the Compound Power dialog. 

You can edit a Power in a Compound Power by 

highlighting it and either clicking the Edit button 

or pressing Enter. 

The Compound Power dialog also features 

Up-Arrow, Down-Arrow, and Insert buttons that 

work similarly to the corresponding buttons on the 


Once you have entered all the Powers that are 

going to make up the Compound Power, click the 

OK button on the Compound Power dialog. The 

Compound Power will be added to the character 

sheet pane. The description of the Compound 

Power is made up of the descriptions of its 

component Powers separated by the word “plus” 

in bold. This is similar to the format used for such 

Power constructs in the HERO System Fifth Edition 

and HERO System Sixth Edition rulebooks. 

The Active, Real, and END costs for a 

Compound Power are the sums of the Active, 

Real, and END costs of its 

component Powers. Note, 

however, that the Real 

Cost may be adjusted if the 

Compound Power is in a 

List or Framework. 

NAKED ADvANTAgES 

The Naked Advantages 

Power lets you enter Naked 

Advantages. To create a 

Naked Adder as described 

in the rulebook, use a 

Custom Power. 

When you add a Naked 

Advantage to a character 

from the available item 

list, the Naked Advantage 

dialog appears.


Like all Power dialogs, the Naked Advantage 

dialog includes a Name field where you can specify 

what the Naked Advantage is to be called. 

The Display field should be edited to identify 

the precise type of Naked Advantage and what 

the Advantage modifies. For example, if you were 

buying Autofire as a Naked Advantage that can be 

used with any firearm (to represent someone who 

can shoot any gun quickly), you might edit this field 

to read “Naked Advantage for All Firearms”. 

The Max. Base Cost field has a value selector 

box that specifies the Active Cost of the largest 

Power to which the Naked Advantage can apply. 

To specify the actual Naked Advantages 

that can be applied to another Power, click the 

Naked Modifiers… button and select the desired 

Advantages. The costs of these Advantages is based 

on the value specified in the Max. Base Cost field. 

This is the Active Cost of the Naked Advantage. 

To offer maximum flexibility, all Advantages are 

available as Naked Advantages. 

To attach an Advantage or Limitation which 

only applies to and affects the cost of the Naked 

Modifier, click the Add Modifiers… button and 

the add the Modifiers using the same procedure as 

adding a Modifier to any other ability. 

CUSTOM POWERS 

Custom Powers let you add new Powers to 

a character that aren’t defined in the current 

character template. You can also use them for 

Power constructs such as Naked Adders that cannot 

be added using other methods. You can attach 

Modifiers and Adders to a Custom Power. 

Custom Power appears in the available item list 

on the right pane of the Powers tab. You can add 

it to a character like any other Power. You can also 

add Custom Powers to Compound Powers. 

When you add a Custom Power, the Custom 

Power dialog appears. This dialog features a variety 

of options that let you give the details of the Power. 

The Display field lets 

you identify the Power. For 

example, when creating a 

character for a campaign 

that used, as a house rule, 

the HERO System Fourth 

Edition version of Instant 

Change, you would enter 

“Instant Change” in the 

Display field. 

The Base Cost field has 

a value selector box used to 

specify the Active Cost of 

the Custom Power. 

The Uses END 

checkbox determines 

whether or not END is 

calculated or specified. 

When checked, END is 

calculated like any other 

Power. When unchecked, 

the Define Custom END Column Output 

checkbox is available. Checking this box makes 

the END Column Output field available. In this 

field, you can enter the specific value or text that 

will appear in the END column for this Custom


DISADvANTAgES 

AND FIFTH EDITION 

TEMPLATES 

As mentioned in the 

section “Ability and 

Complications Tabs” on 

page 16, HERO System Fifth 

Edition uses the term 

Disadvantage instead of 

Complication and thus, 

Fifth Edition templates 

have a Disadvantages 

tab instead of a 

Complications tab. 

When the Normal 

Characteristic Maxima 

box is checked on the 

Characteristics tab (see 

the “Characteristics Tab” 

section on page 8) of a 

Fifth Edition template, the 

Normal Characteristic 

Maxima Disadvantage 

automatically appears on 

the character sheet pane 

of the Disadvantages 

tab. Similarly, when an 

age restriction is selected, 

the Age Disadvantage 

also appears on the 

Disadvantages tab. These 

Disadvantages can be 

moved up and down 

on the character sheet 

pane and sorted but they 

cannot be deleted, edited, 

cut, or copied. They only 

change when the setting 

on the Characteristics tab 

changes. 

Power. If neither the Uses 

END or Define Custom 

END Column Output 

checkboxes are checked, the 

Custom Power is displayed 

with an END value of 0. 

The other checkboxes, 

dropdown lists, and 0 point 

Adders let you specify 

properties of the Custom 

Power that are primarily 

used to determine the 

Modifiers that can be used 

with the Power. 

Complications 

Adding Complications 

to a character is very straightforward. When 

you add a Complication from those listed in the 

available item list, the dialog for that Complication 

appears. 

All Complication dialogs have a Display field 

that contains the name of the Complication. The 

other fields are usually either dropdown lists from 

which you choose the various factors that affect the 

Complication value or blank fields in which you 

provide additional details about the Complication. 

Occasionally, some Complication dialogs also use 

Adders and even Modifiers to specify information. 

If, for some reason such as house rules, you 

need to adjust the value of a Complication, attach a 

Custom Adder. 

The Active Points and Real Cost fields on the 

dialog indicate the value of the Complication. As 

you select options that affect this value, you will see 

these fields change to reflect these choices. 

When you have finished filling out the dialog, 

click the OK button. The Complication appears on 

the character sheet pane. 

The current campaign rules specify the 

maximum number of points in a given type of 

Complication you can add to a character. For details 

on setting campaign rules, see the “Campaign 

Rules” section on page 33. 

CUSTOM COMPLICATIONS 

Custom Complications let you add new 

Complications to a character. You might also use 

it for such things as Experience Points needed 

to balance a Powerful supervillain and Mystery 


Custom Complication appears in the available 

item list on the right pane of the Complications 

tab. You can add it to a character like any other 

Complication. 

The Display field should be edited to reflect 

the name of the new Complication (for example, 

Mystery Complication). 

The Points field has a value selector box used to 

set the value of the Complication. 

When using Custom Complication to represent 

a new Complication that has a cost based on several 

factors, you may want to set the Points field to 0 

and use Custom Adders to represent each factor 

and how much it is worth. Edit the name of each 

Custom Adder to reflect the factor it is representing. 

HERO System Fifth Edition templates use the 

term Custom Disadvantage rather than Custom 

Complication but otherwise 

the two are identical. 

Equipment 

Constructing equipment 

on the Equipment tab is 

similar to constructing 

Powers on the Powers tab. 

There are two significant 

differences. 

The first difference 

is that points spent on 

equipment are not included 

in the character’s point 

total. The equipment 

point total is, however, 

displayed above the 

character sheet pane.


The campaign rules, as 

described in the “Campaign 

Rules” section on page 36, 

may specify a maximum 

number of equipment 

points per character. The 

second difference is that 

abilities purchased on the 

Equipment tab have an 

Equipment Info section on 

their dialogs. This section 

lets you specify information 

about that particular piece 

of equipment. 

The Weight field 

specifies the weight 

of the item in either 

kilograms or pounds as 

set on the Preferences 

menu as described in the 

“Application Preferences” 

section on page 33. 

The Price field specifies 

the price of the item. The 

format of the Price field 

depends upon the current 

campaign rules as described 

in the “Campaign Rules” 


Finally, the Carried 

checkbox specifies if the 

item is carried by the 

character. When checked, 

the weight of the item is 

added to the weight of 

all other items carried by 

character. If this total is 

greater than the amount than the character can 

carry (based on the character’s STR), a warning 

appears. 

WORKINg WITH LISTS AND 

FRAMEWORKS 

Lists are used to organize abilities into groups on 

the character sheet pane. Hero Designer uses Lists 

to implement Frameworks as well as Skill and Perk 

Enhancers. 

Lists 

In their generic form, Lists can contain any item 

allowed on the tab. Items in a List are numbered 1), 

2), 3) and so on. 

Possible uses for Lists include Powers that share 

common Modifiers (for example, a powered armor 

character might put all the Powers that have the 

powered armor as a Focus in a List), Martial Arts 

styles, or Skills associated with specific training (for 

example, ninja training). 

CREATINg A LIST 

To create a new list, select New List… from the 

List menu on the character sheet menu bar. 

The New List dialog appears. 

ATTACHINg 

MODIFIERS 

TO LISTS AND 

FRAMEWORKS 

Modifiers on Lists and 

Frameworks can be 

divided into two groups: 

Common Modifiers and 

Private Modifiers. 

Common Modifiers 

apply to all items in a 

List or Framework as 

well as to the reserve of 

a Framework. To attach 

a Common Modifier, 

click the Add Common 

Modifier button on 

the List or Framework 

dialog. 

Private Modifiers apply 

only to the reserve of a 

Multipower or Variable 

Power Pool. They don’t 

affect slot costs. To 

attach a Private Modifier, 

click the Add MP-only 

Modifier button on a 

Multipower dialog or the 

Add VPP-only Modifier 

button on a Variable 

Power Pool dialog. 

When you add a 

Modifier of the same 

type as a Common 

Modifier to an item in 

a List or Framework, 

only the Modifier 

attached to the item is 

used. For example, if 

you have a Multipower 

with the Common OIF 

Limitation attached and 

add an OAF Limitation 

to a slot, only the OAF is 

applied to the slot’s cost. 

The Charges Modifier 

is an exception. When 

you attach Charges as a 

Common Modifier to a 

Multipower or Elemental 

Control, those Charges 

apply to the whole 

Framework; however, 

the Modifier only affects 

the Multipower reserve 

or the base cost of the 

Elemental Control. It 

does not affect slot costs. 

You can also attach 

Modifiers to a List 

or Framework by 

pasting them from 

another ability, List, or 

Framework as discussed 

in the “Copying, Cutting, 

and Pasting Modifiers” 

section on page 14.


ATTACHINg 

CUSTOM ADDERS 

TO LISTS AND 

FRAMEWORKS 

Adders on Lists and 

Frameworks can be 

divided into two groups: 

Common Adders and 

Private Adders. 

Common Adders apply 

to all items in a List 

or Framework as well 

as to the reserve of a 

Framework. They do not 

apply to the basic cost of a 

List. To attach a Common 

Adder, click the Common 

Adder button on the List 

or Framework dialog. 

Private Adders, on 

the other hand, apply 

only to the reserve of a 

Framework or to the basic 

cost of a List. They do not 

affect the cost of the slot 

at all, only the cost of the 

reserve or the basic List 

cost To attach a Private 

Adder, click the Private 

Adder button on the List 

or Framework dialog. 

These Adders are useful 

for simulating new Skill 

or Perk Enhancers. By 

placing the items to be 

affected by the simulated 

Enhancer in a List and 

applying a Private Adder 

of 3 and a Common Adder 

of -1 to that List, you can 

achieve the same effect as a 

standard Enhancer. 

Enter the name you want to give the List in 

the List Name field and attach any Modifiers and 

Custom Adders that you want to apply to the 

List. See the “Attaching Modifiers To Lists And 

Frameworks” sidebar and the “Attaching Custom 

Adders To Lists And Frameworks” sidebar on page 

26 for details on how Modifiers and Adders affect 

slots. Click OK and the List name appears on 

the character sheet pane along with the attached 

Modifiers. The location of the List on the character 

sheet pane is determined in the same way as adding 

an item to the character sheet described in the 

“Adding An Item” section on page 11. 

If you attempt to create a List inside another 

List or a Framework, a warning appears informing 

you that the new List will be placed outside of the 

selection. The new List appears after the existing 

List or Framework on the character sheet pane. 

Once you have created a List, you can edit its 

name, Modifiers, Adders, and attached notes by 

double-clicking on the END or Cost column next 

to the List name on the character sheet pane, by 

highlighting the List name and clicking the Edit 

button, or by right-clicking on the List name and 

selecting Edit from the pop-up menu. 

ADDINg ITEMS TO A LIST 

Adding items to a List or Framework is really 

just a specialized case of adding items to the 

character sheet pane described in the “Adding An 

Item” section on page 21. 

If no item is highlighted on the character sheet 

pane, a List is at the bottom of the character sheet 

pane, and the Insert button is set to Insert At End, 

the item added appears as the last item in the List. 

If the List name is highlighted and the Insert 

button is set to Insert After, the item added appears 

just after the List name as the first item in the List. 

If an item in the List is highlighted and the 

Insert button is set to either Insert After or Insert 

Before, the item being added appears just after or 

just before the highlighted item based on the setting 

of the Insert button. 

You can also move an item into a List from 

elsewhere on the character sheet pane by 

highlighting the item to be moved and using the 

Up-Arrow and Down-Arrow buttons to move the 

item into the List. 

When you add an item to a List, the List’s 

numbering is adjusted to include the new item. 

REMOvINg ITEMS FROM A LIST 

There are two ways to remove an item from a 

List or Framework: deleting it from the character 

entirely or by moving it out of the List. 

Deleting a List item entirely is just like deleting 

any other item on the character sheet pane. This 

process is described in the “Deleting An Item” 


To move an item out of a List, highlight the item 

and use the Up-Arrow and Down-Arrow buttons 

to move it elsewhere on the character sheet pane. 

When moving the last item in a List down, the first 

move down does not actually change the item’s 

position on the screen, it just takes it out of the List 

(removing the numbering and List Modifiers). 

When an item is removed from a List, the List’s 

numbering is automatically adjusted. 

DELETINg A LIST 

To delete a List or Framework, highlight the List 

name and either click the Delete button or press 

the Delete key. You can also delete a List by rightclicking 

on the List name and selecting Delete from 

the pop-up menu that appears or by clicking the 

Delete button on the List’s dialog when editing it. 

When you attempt to delete a List, a dialog 

appears prompting you for confirmation of the 

deletion. If you click Yes and there are no items 

in the List, the List name is removed from the 

character sheet pane. If you click Yes and there 

are items in the List, you are then prompted if you 

want to delete all items in the List. If you click Yes, 

the List name and all items in the List are removed. 

If you click No, just the List name is removed and 

the numbering from the List items is removed, 

making them the same as any item not in a List. 

Any Modifiers that were applied to the List items as 

a result of them being in the List are also removed 

and the cost of the items is recalculated. If you click 

Cancel, the deletion of the List is cancelled. 

If you have turned off deletion confirmation 

on the Preferences dialog as described in the 

“Application Preferences” section on page 33, you will 

not be prompted as to whether you want to delete 

the List, but you will still be prompted as to whether 

you want to delete all items in the List. 

Separators 

To add a blank line as a separator on the 

character sheet pane, select New Separator from 

the List menu on the character sheet menu bar. 

Because separators are handled internally as 

blank List names (although they cannot have items 

like Lists), the rules for adding a separator are the 

same as those for creating a List (see “Creating A 

List” on page 25). This means that you cannot add a 

separator in a List or Framework. 

Elemental Controls 

Hero Designer implements Elemental Controls 

in HERO System Fifth Edition templates as Lists.


Since HERO System Sixth Edition no longer includes 

Elemental Controls, this Framework is not available 

when using Sixth Edition templates. 

Once you have created an Elemental Control, 

the process of adding and removing items is exactly 

like that described for Lists in the previous section. 

To create an Elemental Control select New 

Elemental Control… from the Power Frameworks 

menu on the character sheet menu bar of the 

Powers tab. 

The New Elemental Control dialog appears. 

Enter the name that you want to assign to the 

Elemental Control in the Name field. When you 

want to give the Framework a name other than 

Elemental Control(for example, “EC”), edit the EC 

Name field to reflect this. 

The Base Points field has a value selector box 

used to set the base points of the Elemental Control. 

All Powers added to the Elemental Control must 

have an Active Cost of at least double that value. 

From this dialog, you can also attach any 

Modifiers and Custom Adders that you want to 

affect the entire Framework. See the “Attaching 

Modifiers To Lists And Frameworks” sidebar on 

page 25 and the “Attaching Custom Adders To Lists 

And Frameworks” sidebar on page 26. 

When you have finished filling out this dialog, 

click OK and the Elemental Control along with 

the attached Modifiers appears on the character 

sheet pane. The location of the Elemental Control 

is determined in the same way as adding an item 

to the character sheet described in the “Adding An 

Item” section on page 11. 

If you attempt to create an Elemental Control 

inside another Framework or a List, a warning 

appears informing you that the new Elemental 

Control will be placed outside of the selection. It 

appears after the existing Framework or List on the 


Once an Elemental Control is created, you can 

edit its name, base cost, Modifiers, Adders, and 

attached notes by double-clicking on the Elemental 

Control on the character sheet pane, by highlighting 

the Elemental Control and clicking the Edit button, 

or by right-clicking on the Elemental Control and 

selecting Edit form the pop-up menu that appears. 

If you try to add a Power whose Active Cost 

is not at least twice the base cost of the Elemental 

Control, a warning appears informing you that the 

cost of that item will be raised to the minimum 

required. Similarly, if you try to add a Special Power 

or a Power that does not normally cost END, an 

appropriate warning appears informing you that 

adding the Power to an Elemental Control is not 

normally allowed. However, the Power is still added. 

You can set Hero Designer to allow Special 

Powers and Powers that do not normally cost END 

without warning or to explicitly forbid such Powers 

with campaign rules, as described in the “Campaign 


Multipowers 

Like Elemental Controls, Hero Designer 

implements Multipowers as Lists. Once you have 

created a Multipower, the process of adding and 

removing items is exactly like that described for 

Lists in the “Lists” section on page 25. 

To create a Multipower, select New 

Multipower… from the Power Frameworks menu 

on the character sheet menu bar of the Powers tab. 

The New Multipower dialog appears. 


Multipower in the Name field. If, for some reason,


you would like the Framework called something 

else on the character sheet pane (for example, 

“MP”), edit the Multipower Name field to reflect 

this. 

The Base Points field has a value selector box 

used to set the Multipower’s point reserve. All 

Powers added to the Multipower must have an 

Active Cost that is equal to or less than this value. 


Modifiers and Adders that you want to affect 

either the reserve or the entire Framework. See the 

“Attaching Modifiers To Lists And Frameworks” 

sidebar on page 25 and the “Attaching Custom Adders 

To Lists And Frameworks” sidebar on page 26. 

When you have filled out this dialog, click OK 

and the Multipower along with attached Modifiers 

appears on the character sheet pane. The location 

of the Multipower is determined in the same way as 

adding an item to the character sheet described in 

the “Adding An Item” section on page 11. 

If you try to create a Multipower inside another 

Framework or a List, a warning informs you that 

the new Multipower will be placed outside of the 

selection. The Multipower appears after the existing 

Framework or List on the character sheet pane. 

Once you have created a Multipower, you 

can edit its name, base cost, Modifiers, Adders, 

and attached notes by double-clicking on the 

Multipower on the character sheet pane, by 

highlighting the Multipower and clicking the Edit 

button, or by right-clicking on the Multipower and 

selecting Edit from the pop-up menu that appears. 

By default, all items added to a Multipower are 

created as fixed (in HERO System Sixth Edition 

templates) or ultra (in HERO System Fifth Edition 

templates) slots. To convert an item from a fixed 

slot to a variable (in HERO System Sixth Edition 

templates) or multi (in HERO System Fifth Edition 

templates) slot, edit the item (as described in the 

“Editing An Item” section on page 25) and uncheck 

the Fixed Slot (Sixth Edition) or Ultra Slot (Fifth 

Edition) box on the item’s dialog. 

If you attempt to add an Power whose Active 

Cost is greater than the Multipower’s reserve, a 

warning appears informing you that the Power 

will be added outside the Multipower. The Power 

appears on the character sheet pane after the last 

slot in the Multipower. Similarly, if you attempt to 

add a Special Power, a warning appears informing 

you that adding the Power to a Multipower is not 

normally allowed. However, the Power is still added. 


Powers or to explicitly forbid such Powers with 

campaign rules, as described in the “Campaign 


variable Power Pools 

Like Elemental Controls and Multipowers, Hero 

Designer implements Variable Power Pools as Lists. 

Once you have created a Variable Power Pool, the 

process of adding and removing items is exactly 

like that described for Lists in the “Lists” section 

on page 25. However, items in a Variable Power Pool 

list are actually just sample Powers that can be built 

with the Pool and will be shown with a cost of 0, 

although the description of the item includes both 

the Active and Real Cost of the Power. 

To create a Variable Power Pool (VPP), select 

New Variable Power Pool… from the Power 

Frameworks menu on the character sheet menu bar 

of the Powers tab. 

The New Variable Power Pool dialog appears. 


VPP in the Name field. If, for some reason, you 

would like the Framework called something else 

on the character sheet pane (for example, “VPP”), 

edit the VPP Name field to reflect this. The Type 

field identifies the type of the VPP. You can select 

Gadget Pool, Magic Pool, or Mimic Pool from the 

dropdown list or fill in the blank field with another 

type. 

The Pool Points field has a value selector box 

used to set the number of points in the Pool. This 

field determines how many Real Points of Powers 

the character can use at one time. For HERO System 

Fifth Edition templates, all sample Powers added to 

the VPP must have an Active Cost that is equal to 

or less than this value. 

The Control Cost field in HERO System Sixth 

Edition templates has a value selector box used to 

set the maximum Active Cost for all Powers in this 

VPP. 


Modifiers and Adders that you want to affect


either the reserve or the entire Framework. See the 

“Attaching Modifiers To Lists And Frameworks” 

sidebar on page 25 and the “Attaching Custom Adders 

To Lists And Frameworks” sidebar on page 26. 

When you have filled out this dialog, click OK 

and the VPP along with the attached Modifiers 

appears on the character sheet pane. The location of 

the VPP is determined in the same way as adding 

an item to the character sheet described in the 

“Adding An Item” section on page 11. 

If you attempt to create a VPP inside another 

Framework or a List, a warning appears informing 

you that the new VPP will be placed outside of 

the selection. The VPP appears after the existing 

Framework or List on the character sheet pane. 

Once you have created a VPP, you can edit its 

name, type, pool points, Modifiers, Adders, and 

attached notes by either double-clicking on the 

VPP on the character sheet pane, by highlighting 

the VPP and clicking the Edit button, or by rightclicking 

on the VPP and selecting Edit from the 

pop-up menu that appears. 

If you try to add an Power whose Active Cost 

is greater than the value in Pool Points (for HERO 

System Fifth Edition templates) or in Control 

Cost (for HERO System Sixth Edition templates), 

a warning appears informing you that the Power 

will be added outside the VPP. The Power appears 

on the character sheet pane after the last slot in 

the VPP. Similarly, if you attempt to add a Special 

Power, a warning appears informing you that 

adding the Power to a VPP is not normally allowed. 

However, the Power is still added. 


Powers or to explicitly forbid such Powers with 

campaign rules, as described in the “Campaign 


Skill And Perk Enhancers 

While Skill and Perk Enhancers are implemented 

as a special form of List, their behavior is quite 

different from the other forms. 

To add a Skill Enhancer, select the desired 

Enhancer from the Skill Enhancer menu on the 

character sheet menu bar of the Skills tab. 

The chosen Enhancer appears on the character 

sheet pane on the appropriate tab. The location of 

the Enhancer is determined in the same way as 

adding an item to the character sheet described in 

the “Adding An Item” section on page 11. 

To add a Perk Enhancer, select the desired 

Enhancer from the Perk Enhancer menu on the 

character sheet menu bar of the Perks tab. 

If that character sheet pane contains any 

items affected by the Enhancer, those items are 

immediately moved into a list beneath the Enhancer 

and numbered appropriately. Any new Skills or 

Perks added after this point that are affected by the 

Enhancer are automatically added to this list. 

You can remove an Enhancer by selecting 

the Enhancer again from the Skill Enhancer or 

Perk Enhancer menu. The Skills or Perks in the 

Enhancer list are moved back into the normal list of 

Skills or Perks on the character sheet pane. 

You can delete both the Enhancer and the items 

in its list by highlighting the Enhancer and clicking 

the Delete button. You are prompted if you want to 

the delete the list. Click Yes. You are then prompted 

if you want to delete all items contained by the 

Enhancer. Click Yes to delete both the Enhancer 

and all items in its list. Click No to delete just the 

Enhancer. Click Cancel to cancel the deletion. 

If you have turned off the need for confirming 

deletions on the Preferences dialog as described 

in the “Application Preferences” section on page 33, 

you will not be prompted as to whether you want to 

delete the Enhancer, but you will still be prompted 

as to whether you want to delete all items in the list. 

As noted in the sidebar the “Attaching Custom 

Adders To Lists And Frameworks” sidebar on page 

26, you can use a combination of Lists and Custom 

Adders to simulate new Enhancers. 

When you select to use Skill Multipliers as 

described in the “Campaign Rules” section on page 

36, Skill Enhancers is replaced with Skill Multipliers 

on the character sheet menu bar of the Skills tab. 

The costs of Skills to which the Skill Multiplier 

applies are calculated as per the Background Skill 

Multiplier rules in the HERO System Fifth Edition 

sourcebook The Ultimate Skill. 

WORKINg WITH MULTIPLE 

CHARACTERS 

Hero Designer lets you work on multiple 

characters at once. The Open Files menu shows the 

names of all currently active characters. For each 

character, it also lists the associated file name and 

a keyboard equivalent. New Hero is displayed for 

any new characters who do not yet have a name 

assigned to them. To change to another character,


select that character from the Open Files menu or 

type the character’s keyboard equivalent. 

By using the techniques described in the 

“Copying, Cutting, and Pasting” section on page 15, 

you can move or copy abilities from one character 

to another. 

When you choose to create a new character with 

one or more characters already loaded, the new 

character defaults to using the same template as the 

last character created or loaded. 

COMBAT RECORDS 

When you have one or more open characters, 

Hero Designer lets you create a combat record that 

summarizes some or all of the open characters. 

Combat records are often used to create SPD charts 

or single sheet character briefs for use during play. 

The exact format and contents of a combat 

record are determined by a combat record Export 

Format. Full instructions on creating and modifying 

combat record Export Formats are available in the 

“Export Formats” chapter on page 52. 

Exporting A Combat Record 

To create and export a combat record, select 

Combat Record Export… from the File menu. 

The Combat Record Character Selection dialog 

appears. 

You can also choose how you want these 

characters to be sorted. This is a two level sort. 

Select the first level sorting method from the 

Sort Characters By dropdown list and check the 

Ascending checkbox beside that list if you want 

the sort to be in ascending order as opposed to the 

default descending order. Select the second level 

sorting method from the Then By dropdown list 

and corresponding checkbox. You can choose to 

sort by Name, SPD, DEX, or Character Points. 

When you have selected the characters to be 

included and specified the sorting methods, click 

Done. 

The Select Export Template dialog appears 

showing a list of available combat record Export 

Formats. Click on a format name to choose a format 

and see its description. Click Select to assign that 

template to the character. 

Next, a standard file selector dialog appears. 

Choose the directory in which you want to save the 

exported file, enter the file name for the exported 

file in the File Name field and click Save. If the file 

name has no extension, the first extension in the 

list of acceptable extensions shown in the Files of 

Type field (specified by the combat record Export 

Format) is used by default. 

To print the exported combat record, load the 

exported file into the appropriate program and 

follow the instructions in that program for printing. 

You can also view, edit, or otherwise manipulate the 

combat record as desired. 

Previewing A Combat Record 

To preview a combat record in your default web 

browser (or other program associated with the 

extensions specified in the Export Format), select 

Preview Combat Record… from the File menu. 

Select the characters to be included, the sorting 

method to use, and the combat record Export 

Format to use. 

Hero Designer then launches your web browser 

(or other appropriate program) with your character 

loaded. Some Export Formats may not preview 

properly. 

SAvINg A CHARACTER 

To save the current character, select Save from 

the Current Character menu . A sub-menu appears 

with the following items: Save Character, Save 

Character As…, Save As Package Deal…, Save As 

Prefab…, and Save As Template…. If the character 

has not been previously saved or has not changed 

since it was last saved, the Save Character item will 

be grayed out. 

Selecting Save Character automatically saves the 

current character with the same file name and in 

the same directory as when it was last saved. Typing 

Ctrl-S is the same as selecting Current Character > 

Save > Save Character. 

Selecting Save Character As displays the Save 

Character file selector dialog. Choose the directory 

in which you want to save the character, enter the 

file name in the File Name field and click Save. The 

file is always saved with an .hdc extension. If you 

specify any other file extension, it is replaced with 

.hdc. Typing Alt-S is the same as selecting Current 

Character > Save > Save Character As…. 

When a character is saved, the current character 

template, and the assigned image, if any, are also 

saved in the character file. 

You can also save all open files by selecting 

Save All Files from the File menu. This saves all 

currently open files with the same file names and in


the same directories as when they were last saved. 

If any of the currently open files have not been 

previously saved, the Save Character file selector 

dialog appears allowing you to specify a file name 

and directory for saving the character. 

For details on Save Character As Prefab… 

and Save Character As Package Deal…, see the 

“Prefabs And Package Deals” chapter on page 40. For 

details on Save Character As Template…, see the 

“Character Templates” chapter on page 43. 

CLOSINg A CHARACTER 

To close the current character, select Close 

Character from the Current Character menu 

or type Ctrl-W. If no changes have been made 

since the character was last saved, the character is 

simply closed. If changes have been made or the 

character has never been saved, you are prompted 

as to whether or not you want to save the character 

before closing it. If you select No, all changes made 

since the character was last saved are lost. If you 

select Yes, the character is saved as described in the 

previous section. 

You can also close all open files by selecting 

Close All Files from the File menu. As with Close 

Character, you will be prompted as to whether or 

not to save any new or changed characters before 

closing. 

If you exit Hero Designer without closing a 

character and that character was previously saved, 

the saved version of that character is automatically 

loaded when you next run the program. 

PREvIEWINg, ExPORTINg, 

AND PRINTINg A 

CHARACTER 

Once you have created your character, you can 

export it for printing, viewing, or editing with a web 

browser, text editor, word processor, or other such 

program. You can also preview the character before 

exporting it to see what the exported character will 

look like. 

To export and preview characters, Hero 

Designer uses Export Formats as described in the 

“Export Formats” section on page 2. Full details 

on creating and modifying Export Formats are 

available in the “Export Formats” chapter on page 52. 

Setting The Export Format 

To set or change the Export Format associated 

with a character, select Export from the Current 

Character menu and then select Set Export 

Format… from the sub-menu that appears or type 

Ctrl+Alt-E. The Select Export Template dialog 

appears showing a list of available Export Formats. 

Click on a Export Format name to choose a format 

and see its description. Click Select to assign that 

Export Format to the character. 

Exporting And Printing A 

Character 

To export a character, select Export from the 

Current Character menu and then select Export 

to File… from the sub-menu that appears or 

type Ctrl-E. If no Export Format is set (either by 

explicitly setting an Export Format or by previously 

exporting or previewing the character), the Select 

Export Template dialog appears as described above 

to let you choose one. Next, a standard file selector 

dialog appears. Choose the directory in which you 

want to save the exported file, enter the file name 

for the exported file in the File Name field and click 

Save. If the file name has no extension, the first 

extension in the list of acceptable extensions shown 

in the Files of Type field (specified by the Export 

Format) is used by default. 

When the character has an image attached, you 

are prompted as to whether or not you want to 

include the image with the exported character (that 

is, save it in the same directory). If you choose to 

include the image, a standard file selector dialog 

appears. Enter the file name to use for the image in 

the File Name field and click Save. Hero Designer 

can save the file in either JPG or GIF format based 

on the file extension you specify. If you do not 

specify a file extension, the image is saved with a 

.jpg extension. If you specify an extension other 

than .jpg or .gif, the image is saved in JPG format 

with that extension, but you will need to change the 

extension to .jpg to use the image.


When the character being exported has one or 

more abilities that are associated with other Hero 

Designer files (as described in the “Associating 

Files” section on page 31), you are prompted as 

to whether or not you also want to export the 

associated files. 

To print an exported character, load the 

exported file into the appropriate program and 

follow the instructions in that program for printing. 

You can also view, edit, or otherwise manipulate the 

file as desired. 

Previewing A Character 

To preview a character in your default web 

browser (or other program associated with the 

extensions specified in the Export Format), select 

Export from the Current Character menu and 

then select Preview Character… from the submenu 

that appears or type Alt-E. If no Export 

Format has been set (either by previously exporting 

or previewing the character or by setting an Export 

Format as described in the “Setting the Export 

Format” section on page 31), the Select Export 

Template dialog appears as described above to let 

you choose one. 

Hero Designer then launches your web browser 

(or other appropriate program) with your character 

loaded. Some Export Formats, such as the one 

designed for use with the Hero Games discussion 

boards, do not preview properly. 

Printing To PDF 

In addition to printing using an Export Format, 

you can also print characters directly to PDF. 

To print the current character to a PDF file, 

select Print to PDF... from the Current Character 

menu. A standard file selector dialog appears. Enter 

the file name for the PDF file in the File Name field 

and click Save. If you do not specify a file extension, 

the file is saved with a .pdf extension. If you specify 

an extension other than .pdf, the image is saved in 

PDF format with that extension, but you may need 

to change the extension to .pdf to display the file. If 

the file is saved with a .pdf extension, that PDF file 

is displayed once it has been created. 

When printing to PDF, Export Formats are 

not used instead characters are always printed 

on character sheets resembling the blank sheets 

included in the HERO System rulebooks. Characters 

based on Fifth Edition templates are printed on 

the sheet from the Fifth Edition rulebooks and 

characters based on Sixth Edition templates 

are printed on the sheet from the Sixth Edition 

rulebooks. 

You can see a PDF character sheet for a HERO 

System Sixth Edition character below.


Configuring Hero Designer ■ 33 

CONFIgURINg 

HERO DESIgNER 

As briefly described in the “Basic Concepts” 

chapter on page 2, there are two ways that 

you can tailor Hero Designer to work the 

way you want it to: applications preferences 

and campaign rules. 

APPLICATION 

PREFERENCES 

Application preferences let you change the 

way Hero Designer and its interface work. These 

changes do not affect the abilities available or the 

way that Hero Designer interprets the HERO System 

rules, but they may affect how those abilities are 

presented. 

To view or edit the current application 

preferences, select Preferences from the File menu. 

The Preferences dialog appears. 

The number of tabs on the Preferences dialog 

varies depending upon the current active character 

template. If no character template is currently active 

(that is, no characters are loaded) or a HERO System 

Sixth Edition character template is currently active, 

the Preferences dialog has five tabs: General, 

System, Display, Modifier Intelligence, and 

Prefabs. If a HERO System Fifth Edition character 

template is currently active, the Preferences dialog 

also has a Template tab. 

general Preferences 

The General tab of the Preferences dialog 

includes five settings that affect the behavior of 

Hero Designer when it starts. The screenshot below 

shows the default settings for this tab. 

The Restore window position on startup 

checkbox specifies whether or not the size and 

position of the main Hero Designer window are 

preserved when you exit the program and restored 

when you restart the program. 

The Remember dialog position and size 

checkbox specifies whether or not Hero Designer 

uses the position and size of the previous dialog 

when displaying a new dialog. 

The Load characters on startup checkbox 

specifies whether or not Hero Designer 

automatically loads characters that were still open 

when you last exited Hero Designer. 

The Load prefabs on startup checkbox specifies 

whether or not Hero Designer automatically loads 

prefabs that were still open when you last exited 


The Tab Placement dropdown list lets you 

select where tabs are displayed for the main Hero 

Designer window as well as any dialogs which use 

tabs. From this dropdown list, you can select to 

display tabs at the Top, Left, Bottom, or Right of 

the window or dialog. 

Finally, there is a slider which sets the amount of 

memory available for use with Hero Designer. Hero 

Designer is optimized to use 64 MB of memory and 

while increasing the memory available can allow 

more characters and Prefabs to be open at once, it 

can also slow down the program. For this reason, 

changing the available memory from 64 MB is not 

recommended. 

System Preferences 

The System tab of the Preferences dialog 

includes settings which affect the overall operation 

of Hero Designer. The screenshot below displays the 

default settings for this tab. 

The Confirm deletions checkbox specifies 

whether or not Hero Designer prompts you for 

confirmation when you attempt to delete an item 

from the character sheet pane. When this box is 

unchecked, Hero Designer still prompts you as to 

whether or not you want to delete all items in a list 

or Framework.

34 ■ Configuring Hero Designer Hero Designer 6th Edition 

The Warn on duplicate purchases checkbox 

specifies whether or not Hero Designer issues a 

warning when you attempt to purchase an ability 

that you have already purchased. 

The Use “Quick Assign” on abilities checkbox 

specifies whether you can add an ability at its base 

level without having that ability’s dialog displayed. 

When this box is not checked, you can still add 

these abilities without displaying their dialogs by 

right-clicking on the ability in the available item list. 

The Prompt to export image file when 

exporting character checkbox specifies whether 

or not Hero Designer prompts you to export an 

attached image file when exporting a character. 

When this box is not checked, Hero Designer 

automatically exports the attached image file. 

The Refresh character template from file 

during load dropdown list describes how Hero 

Designer handles loading a character whose 

character template has changed since the character 

was saved. There are three possible settings: Always, 

Prompt, and Never. When Always is selected, a 

changed character template is always refreshed 

from the original template file when a character 

is loaded. When Prompt is selected, the user is 

prompted as to whether or not to refresh a changed 

character template. When Never is selected, a 

changed character template is never refreshed from 

the original file. 

The Refresh campaign rules from file during 

load dropdown list describes the behavior of Hero 

Designer whose attached 

campaign rules have 

changed since the character 

was saved. There are three 

possible settings: Always, 

Prompt, and Never. When 

Always is selected, changed 

campaign rules are always 

refreshed from the original 

campaign rules file when a 

character is loaded. When 

Prompt is selected, the user 

is prompted as to whether 

or not to refresh changed 

campaign rules. When 

Never is selected, a changed 

campaign rules are never 

refreshed from the original 

file. 

The Number of decimal 

places for rounding field 

specifies the number of 

digits Hero Designer 

calculates to before 

rounding. 

The Character template 

directory, Default 

Campaign Rules directory, 

and Default Export 

Template directory fields 

specify the directories 

in which Hero Designer 

will look for character 

templates, campaign rules, and Export Formats, 

respectively You can either enter directory names 

directly in the text boxes provided or you can use 

the Browse buttons to find the desired directories 

using a standard file selector. 

Finally, there are several fields which specify the 

default Export Formats to be used with the specified 

built-in character templates. 

Display Preferences 

The Display tab of the Preferences dialog 

includes six settings which affect how abilities are 

displayed on the character sheet pane and thus, how 

they are exported. The screenshot below shows the 

default settings for this tab.

Hero Designer 6th Edition Configuring Hero Designer ■ 35 

The Use strict Writers’ Guidelines compliance 


displays abilities in a format as close to that of 

the Hero Games Writers’ Guidelines as possible. 

Normally, Hero Designer displays additional 

information for some abilities and Modifiers. 

The Use metric units of measurement for 

character height and weight checkbox specifies 

whether or not Hero Designer uses metric 

measurements for entering and displaying the 

height and weight of a character as well as the 

weight of equipment. If this box is unchecked, 

English units are used instead. 

The Display Active Points on abilities (by 

default) checkbox specifies whether or not Hero 

Designer defaults to automatically displaying the 

Active Points of any ability to which Modifiers have 

been attached. The Display Active Points checkbox, 

which normally appears on an ability’s dialog when 

you attach a Modifier is automatically checked. 

It can still be unchecked if you don’t want Active 

Points displayed for a particular ability. 

The Show Common Limitations in slots on 

Lists/Frameworks checkbox specifies whether or 

not Hero Designer displays Limitations which apply 

to all slots of a Framework or list on each slot. 

The Use Abbreviations (where available) 


will display commonly-used abbreviations for 

certain abilities or Modifiers. For example, DI 

is displayed instead of Density Increase. When 

the Use strict Writers’ Guidelines compliance 

checkbox is also checked, only those abbreviations 

allowed by the Writers’ Guidelines are included. 

The Show Popup definitions in selection lists 

checkbox specifies whether or not you can view an 

ability’s definition by simply moving your mouse 

over the ability’s name in a selection list. 

Note that changing these settings only affects 

those abilities added after the change is made. The 

change has no effect on abilities already added. 

Modifier Intelligence 

Preferences 

The Modifier Intelligence tab of the Preferences 

dialog has three checkboxes that define how 

Hero Designer handles Modifier intelligence. The 

screenshot below shows the default settings for 

these checkboxes. 

The Use ‘Modifier Intelligence’ checkbox 

specifies whether or not Hero Designer uses 

Modifier intelligence when determining what 

Modifiers can be attached to abilities. When this 

box is unchecked, Modifier intelligence is still used 

to separate out non-recommended Modifiers but 

these Modifiers are still available to be attached. 

Additionally, if this box is unchecked, the other two 

settings in this section are grayed out and have no 

effect. 

The Check Modifiers during ability edit 


examines all Modifiers attached to an ability for 

validity each time you edit that ability. When this 

box is unchecked, Hero Designer also does not 

check Modifiers for validity when a character is 

loaded. Additionally, if this box is unchecked, the 

Remove Modifiers which fail validity check setting 

is grayed out and has no effect. 

The Remove Modifiers which fail validity 

check checkbox specifies whether or not Hero 

Designer automatically removes Modifiers that it 

does not consider valid for an ability. 

Prefabs Settings 

The Prefabs tab of the Preferences dialog 

includes two settings that deal with how Hero 

Designer handles Prefabs. The screenshot below 

displays the default settings for this tab. 

The Show Powers Prefabs on the Equipment 

Tab checkbox specifies whether or not Powers 

stored in Prefabs are displayed on the Equipment 

tab as well as the Powers tab. 

The Show Equipment Prefabs on the Powers 

Tab specifies whether or not equipment stored in 

Prefabs is displayed on the Powers tab as well as the 

Equipment tab. 

Template Preferences 

When the currently active character template 

is a HERO System Fifth Edition template, the 

Preferences dialog also includes a Template tab. 

This tab displays a list of HERO System Fifth 

Edition sourcebooks and other sources from which 

Hero Designer Fifth Edition character templates 

draw the abilities available in various selection lists. 

When the checkbox for a source listed on this tab 

is checked, Hero Designer includes the abilities 

defined in that source. When the checkbox is 

HERO gAMES 

WRITERS’ 

gUIDELINES 

The Hero Games Writers’ 

Guidelines (available at 

www.herogames.com/get/ 

WritersGuidelines.pdf) 

describe the format to be 

used when submitting 

character sheets and other 

write-ups for publication. 

When Use strict Writers’ 

Guidelines compliance 

is selected, Hero Designer 

displays and exports all 

abilities in a format as 

close as possible to the 

Writers’ Guidelines. 

This option works best 

with Export Formats that 

also follow the Writers’ 

Guidelines. There are still 

a few idiosyncrasies in 

the Writers’ Guidelines 

that can’t be generated 

by Hero Designer. Thus, 

when submitting character 

sheets produced by Hero 

Designer for publication 

by Hero Games, you 

should double check 

those sheets to ensure that 

they fully meet Writers’ 

Guidelines requirements 

and edit them manually if 

they do not.


not checked, those abilities are not included. The 

screenshot below displays the default settings for 

this tab. 

When there are no characters loaded or the 

currently active character template is a HERO 

System Sixth Edition template, this tab does not 

appear on the Preferences dialog. 

CAMPAIgN RULES 

Almost every HERO System campaign operates 

under slightly different rules. Sometimes the 

difference is simply a matter of different point 

limits. Sometimes, it’s the use of Active Point limits. 

Other times, it’s the use of options listed in a HERO 

System rulebook or sourcebook. With all of these 

possibilities, it can sometimes be difficult to keep 

track of what limits and 

options are in use in a given 

campaign. 

To make this task easier, 

Hero Designer lets you 

create sets of campaign 

rules that you can assign 

to characters to enforce 

campaign-related options. 

Once you have defined a 

set of rules for a campaign, 

you can attach those 

rules to each individual 

character created for that 

campaign. If that character 

is then moved to another 

campaign, you can attach 

the campaign rules for 

that new campaign to 

the character and the old 

rules will be replaced. You 

can then ensure that the 

character is in line with the 

new campaign rules. 

To view or edit the campaign rules for the 

current character, select Campaign Rules from the 

Current Character menu and then select View/ 

Edit Campaign Rules from the sub-menu that 

appears. The View/Edit Rules dialog appears. 

At the top of this dialog is the Ruleset Name 

field. When you are viewing or editing a set of 

campaign rules that was previously attached to 

the character, the name assigned to those rules is 

displayed in this field. When no campaign rules 

have been attached to the current character, this 

field is blank. 

When the current character is based on a HERO 

System Fifth Edition character template, the View/ 

Edit Rules dialog has three tabs: Point Limits, 

Rules, and Settings. When the current character is 

based on a Sixth Edition template, the dialog also 

has a Characteristic Maxima tab. 

Point Limits Tab 

The Point Limits tab lets you specify a variety 

of point limits for a campaign. These point limits 

apply to all characters to which this set of rules is 

attached. The screenshot below shows the default 

values for this tab. 

For each point limit, you can select Ignore, 

Warn, or Do not allow from the associated 

dropdown list. If you select Ignore, Hero Designer 

takes no action when the point limit is exceeded. 

If you select Warn, a warning is displayed when 

the point limit is displayed. If you select Do not 

allow, Hero Designer does not permit you to add 

any ability that would cause the point limit to be 

exceeded. 

Note that the screenshot is for HERO System 

Sixth Edition character templates; when the current 

character is based on a HERO System Fifth Edition

Hero Designer 6th Edition Configuring Hero Designer ■ 37 

character template, the term “Disadvantage” or 

“Disad” is used in place of “Complication”. 

Characteristic Maxima Tab 

The Characteristic Maxima tab is only available 

when the current character is based on a HERO 

System Sixth Edition character template. This 

tab lets you specify the campaign maximum (if 

any) for each Characteristic. The maximum for a 

Characteristic represents the point where, when 

exceeded, the Characteristic begins to cost double. 

Rules Tab 

The Rules tab lets you implement several 

optional rules (such as the Language Familiarity 

Chart and cost multipliers) and alter how Hero 

Designer interprets other rules. The screenshot 

below shows the defaults values for this tab for 

HERO System Sixth Edition character templates. 

Many of the rules on this tab are turned on or 

off by checking or unchecking the corresponding 

checkbox. For example, if you want to allow the 

use of the Standard Effect rule in your campaign, 

you would check the Standard Effect allowed 

checkbox. 

If the campaign uses the optional Skill Maxima 

rule, check the Use Normal Skill Maxima Limit 

checkbox and set the maximum Skill Roll value. 

Beyond this value, increasing a Skill Roll costs 

double. Similarly, if the optional Background 

Skill Multiplier rule is in use, check the Use Skill 

Multiplier check box. 

You can also use this tab to change how 

Characteristic Rolls and Skill Rolls are calculated 

by specifying different values for their bases and 

denominator. For example, if you want Skill Rolls 

to be calculated as 8+(CHAR/3) instead of as 

9+(CHAR/5), you would set the Skill Roll Base 

field to 8 and the Skill Roll Denominator field to 3. 

For other rules, there is a dropdown list to 

determine the action taken by Hero Designer in 

certain situations. These dropdown lists are similar 

to the ones described in the “Point Limits Tab” 

section on page 36. For example, you can set Hero


Designer not to react to linking different slots of 

a Power Framework by selecting Ignore from the 

Linking different slots of a Power Framework 

dropdown list. 

When the current character is based on a HERO 

System Fifth Edition character template, the Rules 

tab contains additional rules options for features 

like Elemental Controls and Figured Characteristics 

that are not part of the HERO System Sixth Edition 

rules. 

Settings Tab 

The Settings tab includes a variety of additional 

settings that will be applied to characters to which 

this set of rules is attached. The screenshot below 

shows the defaults values for this tab. 

The Active Points per END field specifies 

how many Active Points of an endurance-using 

ability (except STR) cost 1 END to use. The Active 

Points per END (STR) does the same thing for 

STR. By default, both these fields are set to 10 for 

superheroic templates and to 10 and 5, respectively, 

for heroic and normal templates. 

When the Equipment Allowed checkbox is 

checked, the Equipment tab becomes available for 

all characters to which these campaign rules are 

attached. Additionally, when this box is checked, 

several equipment-related fields become available. 

The Monetary Units field lets you specify the 

symbol or string that represent monetary units in 

your campaign. For example, you might specify “$” 

for a modern Champions campaign, “GP” (for gold 

pieces) for a Fantasy Hero campaign, or “Cr” (for 

credits) for a Star Hero campaign. 

The Prepend unit string to value checkbox 

specifies where the symbol or string specified where 

the Monetary Units field should appear in relation 

to a monetary value. When this box is checked, 

the string or symbol appears before the value (for 

example, $1.00). When it is unchecked, the string or 

symbol appears after the value (for example, 1GP). 

The # CU per $1 field specifies the value of 1 

current monetary unit in the generic currency units 

used by Hero Designer to track prices. The $1 in 

this field’s name is altered based on the value of the 

Monetary Units field. For example, if Monetary 

Units is set to “GP” and the Prepend unit string to 

value checkbox is unchecked, the field name will be 

# CU per 1GP. 

The purpose of this value is to allow easy 

conversions between currency. For example, 

suppose an American GM creates a prefab full of 

modern day equipment with prices in American 

dollars and a # CU per $1 setting of “1” in the 

campaign rules. This GM then shares the prefab 

with a British GM who likes the prefab but would 

prefer the prices to be in British pounds. To 

accomplish this, the British GM simply sets the 

# CU per ₤1 field in his campaign rules to “1.57” 

(the current value of a British pound in American 

dollars). Thus, when adding equipment from 

the prefab to characters with these campaign 

rules attached, the prices 

of the equipment will 

automatically be displayed 

in British pounds. 

The decimal places field 

specifies how many decimal 

places will be displayed 

for monetary values. For 

example, for American 

dollars, you would likely set 

this field to “2”, yielding a 

display of $1.00, while for 

fantasy gold pieces, you 

would likely set this field 

to “0”, yielding a display of 

1GP. 

Finally, the Notes Tabs 

section allows you to add 

up to five additional tabs 

to the main Hero Designer 

window. Each new tab is 

essentially one large text 

box in which information 

about the character not 

included on other tabs 

can be entered. To add a 

new tab, check the Enable 

checkbox for the tab and 

enter the desired title for 

the new tab in the Tab Title 

field. By default, the five


Configuring Hero Designer ■ 39 

available new tabs are titled Notes 1, Notes 2, … 

Notes 5. 

It is important to note that information entered 

on these additional tabs will not be exported unless 

the Export Format selected specifically exports the 

information from those tabs. 

If the current character is based on a HERO 

System Fifth Edition character template, this tab 

will include two additional checkboxes which let 

you specify if NCM (Normal Character Maxima) is 

automatically applied to all characters and whether 

or not the NCM choice can be changed on a 

character by character basis. For more information 

on Normal Characteristic Maxima in HERO System 

Fifth Edition, see “Characteristic Maxima” on page 8. 

Saving Campaign Rules 

Once you have set up your campaign rules, you 

must save them before they have any effect. 

If you are modifying an existing set of campaign 

rules (other than the default rules), two buttons will 

be available on the View/Edit Rules dialog: Save 

and Save As…. 

Clicking the Save button saves the campaign 

rules with the same name under which they were 

previously saved. 

Clicking the Save As… button launches a 

standard file selector. Choose the directory in which 

you want to save the character, enter the file name 

in the File Name field and click Save. 

In either case, the campaign rules are saved with 

a .hdr extension. 

When you are creating a new set of campaign 

rules, only the Save As… button is available. 

Once you have saved a set of campaign rules, 

those rules are automatically applied to the current 

active character. The status line at the bottom of 

the Hero Designer window is updated to show the 

name of the new campaign rules attached. 

To exit the View/Edit Rules dialog without 

saving the rules and applying them to the current 

active character, either click Cancel or close the 

dialog. 

Attaching Campaign Rules 

To A Character 

As mentioned in the previous section, when you 

save campaign rules, those rules are then attached 

to the current active character. 

To attach an existing set of campaign rules to 

the current active character, select Load Campaign 

Rules… from the Campaign Rules menu. A 

standard file selector dialog appears. Select the file 

containing the campaign rules you want to load and 

click Load Campaign Rules to load that file and 

apply the rules. The status line at the bottom of the 

Hero Designer window is updated to show the new 

of campaign rules as being attached. 

To attach the default HERO System campaign 

rules to the current active character, select Set to 

Hero System Default from the Campaign Rules 

menu. The default campaign rules are applied to the 

character and the status line is updated.

40 ■ Prefabs And Package Deals Hero Designer 6th Edition 

PREFABS AND 

PACKAgE DEALS 


chapter on page 2, a Prefab is a Hero 

Designer file that contains lists of abilities 

and Disadvantages that you want to make 

available for multiple characters to chose items 

from. 

Similarly, a Package Deal (also briefly described 

in the “Basic Concepts” chapter) is a Hero Designer 

file containing a set of Characteristic modifications, 

abilities, and Complications (or Disadvantages 

for characters built on HERO System Fifth Edition 

character templates) that can be added in total (that 

is, all items in the Package Deal are added) to any 

character. 

Hero Designer Package Deals are most 

commonly used for implementing Package Deals 

from HERO System Fifth Edition and Templates 

from HERO System Sixth Edition, which are the 

same concept with two different names. 

PREFABS 

Possible uses for Prefabs include Martial Arts 

styles, equipment lists, spell lists, lists of Everyman 

Skills, lists of common Complications, and so on. 

Basically, any time that you have a list of abilities or 

Disadvantages that you want to use with more than 

one character, you may find it useful to put those 

items in a Prefab. 

For details on sharing Prefabs and Package Deals 

with other users, see the “Sharing Hero Designer 

Files” sidebar on page 3. 

Creating A Prefab 

To create a Prefab, select New Prefab from the 

File menu. A blank form similar to a character form 

appears. Unlike a character form, this form has no 

Background or Characteristics tabs, because the 

information on these tabs is not used in Prefabs. 

The Basic Info tab has two fields. In the Prefab 

Name field, enter the name of the Prefab. In the 

Created By field, enter your name, e-mail address, 

or other identifying information. The Created By 

field lets other users with whom you may share this 

Prefab know who created it. 

Using this character form, add the abilities and 

Complications that you to want to include in the 

Prefab. You do this in the same way that you add 

abilities and Complications to a character. Any 

abilities with costs that normally may depend upon 

a character’s point total (for example, the Follower 

and Vehicle & Bases Perks) have their costs 

calculated based on a point total of 0. When these 

abilities are added to a character from the Prefab, 

their costs are recalculated based on that character’s 

point total. 

You may find it handy to organize some of the 

items in the Prefab into lists because, as discussed in 

the “Using Prefabs” section on page 41, you can add 

an entire List or Framework from a Prefab with a 

single action. 

For example, if you were using Prefabs to store 

Martial Arts styles, you could do it in one of two 

ways. You could create a separate Prefab for each 

style or you could create one Prefab that contained 

all the styles. When using the latter method, you 

would create a List for each style and put all the 

Martial Maneuvers for that style in the List. 

As another example, suppose you were creating a 

Prefab for a Package Deal that gives you a choice of 

one of three particular Skills. In this case, you might 

put those Skills in a List named “Choose one of”. 

Once you have entered all the items that you 

want to include in the Prefab, it is time to save 

the Prefab. This is just like saving a character, as 

described in the “Saving A Character” section on 

page 30, except that the sub-menu of the Save item on 

the Current Prefab menu contains Save Prefab and 

Save Prefab As instead of Save Character and Save 

Character As. By default, the name of the Prefab

Hero Designer 6th Edition Prefabs And Package Deals ■ 41 

file will be the same as the name of the Prefab. The 

Prefab file is saved with a .hdp extension. 

CREATINg A PREFAB FROM A CHARACTER 

As an alternative, you can create a Prefab from a 

character. To do so, simply create or load a character 

that has the abilities and Complications you want 

to include in the Prefab. Note that anything on the 

Basic Info, Background, and Characteristics tabs 

will not be included in the Prefab. 

To turn this character into a Prefab, select Save 

from the Current Character menu and then Save 

As Prefab… from the sub-menu that appears or 

type Alt-P. The Save As Prefab dialog appears 

prompting you to enter the name for the Prefab. 

This is not the name of the file that is going to 

contain the Prefab but rather the name that will 

be used to refer to the Prefab in the Prefab menu. 

Enter the Prefab name and click OK. A standard 

file selector dialog appears. Choose the directory 

in which you want to store the Prefab file and enter 

the desired name for the file in the File Name field 

and click Save. The Prefab file is saved with a .hdp 

extension. 

Loading And Unloading 

Prefabs 

To load a Prefab, select Load Prefabs… from 

the Prefabs menu or type Ctrl-L. A standard file 

selector dialog appears. Select the file containing the 

Prefab you want to load and click Load Prefab. The 

selected Prefab is loaded and will remain loaded 

until it is explicitly unloaded. If you exit Hero 

Designer with one or more Prefabs loaded, those 

Prefabs will be loaded automatically when you 

next restart the program (unless you have specified 

otherwise on the Preferences dialog as described in 

the “Application Preferences” section on page 33). 

To unload a Prefab, go to the Prefabs menu and 

move the mouse down to Unload Prefab. A list of 

currently loaded Prefabs appears to the right of the 

menu. Click on the name of the Prefab you want to 

unload and that Prefab is unloaded. 

Using Prefabs 

Once you have loaded one or more Prefabs, you 

can add any of the abilities or Complications in 

those Prefabs to any active character. 

To see the list of available items in the loaded 

Prefabs that you can add to a given tab’s character 

sheet, select that tab and then select the Prefabs 

subtab on the right pane. If the loaded Prefabs do 

not contain any items that can be added on that tab, 

the available item list is empty. Otherwise, you will 

see the list of items in the Prefab that can be added 

on the current tab. 

The Prefab item list is shown in tree format with 

folders being used to represent both Prefabs and 

Lists within the Prefabs. For example, suppose you 

had a Prefab named Science Skills that contained a 

collection of various science skills. With this Prefab 

loaded, the first time you look at the Prefabs subtab 

of the Skills tab, you would see the following: 

As you can see from the screenshot, it just shows 

a folder for the entire Prefab. You can open and 

close this or any other folder by clicking on the 

symbol to the left of the folder icon. After opening 

this folder, the Prefabs subtab looks like this: 

You can now add any item from the Prefabs 

subtab in the same way as you would add any other 

item (see “Adding An Item” on page 11). However, 

no dialog appears when you add an item from a 

Prefab. Items in Prefabs include any name, options, 

Modifiers, Adders, or notes set for the item when it 

was originally added to the Prefab. 

Editing A Prefab 

Occasionally, you will find that you need to 

go back and edit a Prefab. Usually, this is either 

to correct an error or to add new abilities or 


To edit a Prefab, select Open Prefab… from the 

File menu. A standard file selector dialog appears. 

Select the file containing the character you want to 

load and click Open Prefab to load that file as well 

as the associated character template and campaign 

rules. 

Make the desired changes to the Prefab’s 

contents and save the Prefab as described in the 

“Creating A Prefab” section on page 40.

42 ■ Prefabs And Package Deals Hero Designer 6th Edition 

PACKAgE DEALS 

In some ways, Package Deals are similar to 

Prefabs in that they are collections of items that 

can be added to any Hero Designer character. 

However, unlike Prefabs, which essentially provide 

lists of items for users to choose individual items 

from, Package Deals are applied in whole to a 

character. Package Deals are particularly useful for 

representing things like professions, cultures, and 

fantasy or alien races and other groups represented 

by Package Deals (in HERO System Fifth Edition) or 

Templates (in HERO System Sixth Edition). 

Creating Package Deals 

To create a Package Deal, you create a 

character with the Characteristics, abilities, and 

Disadvantages that a basic character with that 

Package Deal would have. Next, load any Prefabs 

that you want included as part of the Package Deal. 

Prefabs in Package Deals are useful for representing 

lists of abilities that can be chosen from. 

For example, many HERO System Package Deals 

and Templates include lists like “Choose two of the 

following skills”. Such lists are best implemented 

as Prefabs that will be stored as part of the Package 

Deal. 

Finally, to save that character as a Package Deal, 

select Save from the Current Character menu and 

then select Save As Package Deal … from the submenu 

that appears. The Enter Package Deal Name 

dialog appears prompting you to enter the name 

for the Package Deal. This is not necessarily the 

name of the file that is going to contain the Package 

Deal but rather the name of the deal itself. Enter 

the Package Deal name and click OK. A standard 

file selector dialog appears. Choose the directory in 

which you want to store the Package Deal file and 

enter the desired name for the file in the File Name 

field and click Save. If you have any Prefabs loaded, 

you are prompted as to whether or not you want 

those Prefabs saved as part of the Package Deal. The 

Package Deal file is saved with a .hpk extension. 

It should be noted here that the Characteristics 

entered when creating a Package Deal are those of 

a basic character that has that deal. That is, the only 

differences in Characteristics from the base values 

are those that are a result of that deal. 

For example, if a Package Deal gives +2 STR, 

you should enter 12 in the Value field for STR on 

the Characteristics tab When this deal is applied (as 

described in the next session) to a character, Hero 

Designer adjusts each Characteristic’s Value field by 

the difference between that Characteristic’s Value 

and Base fields in the Package Deal. 

Applying Package Deals 

To apply a Package Deal to a character, 

select Apply Package Deal… from the Current 

Character menu. The Apply Package Deal file 

selector appears. Select the Package Deal you want 

to apply and click Apply Package Deal. 

When a Package Deal is applied, the current 

character’s Characteristics are adjusted as 

described in the previous section and any abilities 

or Complications in the Package Deal are added 

to the character. In addition, any Prefabs that 

were included in the Package Deal will be loaded, 

allowing to select items from those Prefabs to add 

to the character. 

Editing Package Deals 

Currently, Hero Designer does not provide any 

method for editing Package Deals. However, if 

you save the “character” you are using as the basis 

for your Package Deal as a character (with a .hdc 

extension) before you save it as a Package Deal, you 

can reload that character , edit it, and then resave it 

as both a character and as a Package Deal (using the 

same file names as when you first saved them). You 

have then effectively edited your Package Deal.


Character Templates ■ 43 

CHARACTER 

TEMPLATES 


chapter on page 2, character templates are 

XML (Extensible Markup Language) files 

that define various aspects of the rules used 

to build HERO System characters. This includes 

the points available to build a character as well as 

a complete list of Characteristics, abilities (Skills, 

Powers, Perks, and so forth), Complications (or 

Disadvantages), and Modifiers (Advantages and 

Limitations) along with their costs. 

Because the character template also defines 

exactly what options are available for abilities and 

Modifiers as well as the relationships between 

different abilities and Modifiers, you can change 

how Hero Designer interprets the HERO System 

rules by creating custom versions of the standard 

templates. This chapter provides an overview of the 

structure and format of character templates so that 

you can create your own by either editing a copy of 

one of the standard templates or creating your own 

template from scratch. See the “Copies Of Standard 

Character Templates” sidebar for more information 

about copies of the standard templates. 

There are two methods for creating a character 

template: saving a character as a template and 

creating a character template from scratch. 

SAvINg A CHARACTER AS 

A TEMPLATE 

When your template does not involve making 

any changes to the standard HERO System rules, 

it is easiest to create it by saving a character as a 

template. For example, if all the characters in a 

given campaign will be created using the same 

campaign rules, have the same Everyman Skills, and 

have a common set of campaign-specific Perks and 

Complications, you may want to use this method to 

create a character template that can then be used to 

create all characters for that campaign. 

To do so, create a new character with the 

desired starting Characteristics, abilities, and 


Next, assign the desired set of campaign rules 

(if any) and load any prefabs you want to have 

available to all characters built with the template. 

Finally, select Save from the Current Character 

menu and then select Save Character As 

Template... from the sub-menu that appears. The 

Enter Template Name dialog appears prompting 

you to enter the name for the character template. 

This is not necessarily the name of the file that is 

going to contain the template but rather the name 

of the template itself. Enter the template name and 

click OK. A standard file selector dialog appears. 

Choose the directory in which you want to store the 

character template file and enter the desired name 

for the file in the File Name field and click Save. 

If you have any prefabs loaded, you are 

prompted as to whether or not you want those 

prefabs saved as part of the template. The character 

template file is saved with a .hdt extension. 

You may also want to save the “character” you 

used to created the character template as a character 

file (with a .hdc extension), so that if you want 

to make changes to the template, you can edit 

the saved character then resave it as a character 

template. 

Creating A Template From 

Scratch 

If you want to create a character template that 

requires changes to the standard HERO System 

rules, you should consider creating a new custom 

character template from scratch. 

You can edit or create a character template 

using any standard text editor such as the Notepad 

application on Windows systems or the VI editor on 

Linux and UNIX systems. Once you have finished 

editing or creating a template, be sure to save the 

template with a .hdt extension. Only files with a .hdt 

extension are recognized as character templates. 

While the following sections describe the 

structure of a character template and define the 

containers and attributes used in the template, a 

greater understanding can be obtained by viewing 

the copies of the standard templates provided, so 

you can see how these items are actually used. 

COPIES OF 

STANDARD 

CHARACTER 

TEMPLATES 

You can get copies of the 

standard Hero Designer 

character templates by 

extracting the .hdt files 

from the HDv3.jar file 

using WinZip or a similar 

program for unzipping 

archives. This is best done 

in a directory other than 

the Hero Designer install 

directory. 

As an alternative, you can 

send an e-mail message 

to support@herodesigner. 

com and ask for the latest 

version of the templates.

44 ■ Character Templates Hero Designer 6th Edition 

CUSTOM 

TEMPLATES 

FROM PREvIOUS 

vERSIONS 

Due to the redesign of 

how character templates 

work, it is strongly 

recommended that you not 

use any Hero Designer v1 

custom templates. Hero 

Designer v2 templates 

should work without 

problem if they were 

created as extensions to 

the built-in templates. 

Templates for HERO 


characters may need 

editing before being used 

with HERO System Sixth 

Edition characters. 

The Hierarchical Structure of 

Character Templates 

Hero Designer character templates use a 

hierarchical structure. That is, one character 

template can be defined as an extension of another 

template. When a character template is defined 

in this way, it need only describe the differences 

between it and the other template. Such templates 

are called extension templates. 

The standard templates are all defined in this 

manner. They are extensions of the built-in Main. 

hdt template. 

It is recommended that you create a custom 

template as an extension template based on an 

existing built-in template. This ensures not only that 

all users of the custom template have the template 

on which it is based but that you need only define 

the differences from the built-in template. This 

latter benefit means not only less work for you but 

makes it much easier for another user to understand 

what is customized in the template. Finally, if the 

built-in template is updated, those changes are 

automatically inherited by the extension template. 

For more information on creating extension 

templates, see the “Creating Extension Templates” 

on page 50. 

xML Basics 

As noted earlier, character templates use XML. 

An XML document is comprised of “containers”. 

Containers have the form: 

 

 

 

 

Each container begins with an opening tag (such 

as and ) and ends 

with a corresponding closing tag (such as 

and ). As a shorthand for 

containers that do not contain anything, you can 

use the following format: 

 

Note the / before the closing >. That ends the 

empty container. 

As you can see from the basic format shown 

above, containers may contain other containers. 

This nesting structure can go as deeply as you want. 

Additionally, containers can have attributes. An 

attribute is a simple name/value pair. The name of 

the attribute must be unique within the tag. The 

value of the attribute must be surrounded by double 

quotes. 

Finally, all names in XML are case-sensitive, so 

TAGNAME is a different name from TagName. 

Structure Of A Character 

Template 

The basic structure of a Hero Designer character 

template is as follows: 

 

 

… 

 

 

… 

 

 

… 

 

 

… 

 

 

… 

 

 

… 

 

 

… 

 

 

… 

 

 

… 

 

 

Each of these containers defines a major section 

of the template. These sections are discussed later in 

this chapter. 

COMMON ATTRIBUTES 

The following attributes are used throughout 

character templates: 

XMLID: All items defined in the template 

should have this attribute. Its value can be 

any string, but the string must be unique 

within the item’s context. For example, if 

you’re defining a Modifier, the XMLID must 

be unique within the context of all Modifiers. 

There are cases where you may want to 

repeat a given XMLID (that is, have it not 

be unique), such as when you want a new 

Modifier to replace an existing one. 

Items which have unique containers (such 

as ACROBATICS or ABSORPTION) 

automatically have an XMLID which is the 

same as the container name. 

DISPLAY: This attribute specifies the initial 

display value for the item. Any string value 

can be used here. Usually, this is the name of 

the item. 

BASECOST: The cost or value for the item. For 

example, for Powers, this is the base cost to 

purchase the Power. For Modifiers, it is the

Hero Designer 6th Edition Character Templates ■ 45 

value of the Modifier. Any decimal value can 

be inserted here (positive or negative). 

MINCOST: This attribute specifies the 

minimum cost or value for the item. 

MAXCOST: This attribute specifies the 

maximum cost or value for the item. 

LVLCOST: This attribute specifies the cost to 

increase a level with the item. Any decimal 

value can be used here. For example, most 

standard Skills have a LVLCOST of 2, that is, 

it costs 2 points to add a +1 to the Skill Roll. 

LVLVAL: This attribute specifies the value of 

increasing a level. For example, in HERO 

System Sixth Edition, STUN increases (by 

default) 2 points for every Character Point. 

The template represents this as 

LVLCOST=“1” LVLVAL=“2”. Any integer 

value can be used here. 

LVLPOWER: This attribute is used for “Powerbased” 

items. If you want an ability to 

increase by 2x for each level, you would use 

this tag, setting its value to “2”. Any integer 

value can be used here. 

LVLMULTIPLIER: This attribute, if present, 

causes the levels to be multiplied (once) by 

the specified value. Any integer value can be 

used here. 

LVLSTART: This attribute specifies the default 

starting level for an item. 

MINVAL: This attribute specifies the minimum 

level for the item. 

MAXVAL: The attribute specifies the maximum 

level for the item. 

USESEND: This attribute specifies whether or 

not the ability uses END. Valid values are 

“Yes” or “No”. 

APPEREND: This attribute specifies the Active 

Points per point of END for the item. This 

value will only be used for STR or items 

purchased as Powers. Any integer value can 

be used here. If you specify the APPEREND 

attribute for STR or a Power in a template, it 

overrides any END cost settings specified in 

the current campaign rules. 

INPUTLABEL: This attributes specifies the label 

for a field on the item’s dialog that requires 

input from the user. Any string can be 

specified here. 

OTHERINPUT: This attributes specifies 

whether the user can specify their own input 

or whether they must use one of the provided 

values. Valid values are “Yes” and “No”. 

ALLOWSOTHERMODIFIERS: This attribute 

specifies whether non-specific Modifiers can 

be added to this item. Valid values are “Yes” 

and “No”. If it is set to “Yes”, there will be an 

Add Modifier… button on the item’s dialog. 

ALLOWSOTHERADDERS: This attribute 

specifies whether or not non-specific Adders 

can be added to this ability. Valid values are 

“Yes” and “No”. If it is set to “Yes”, there will 

be a Custom Adder button on the item’s 

dialog. 

EXCLUSIVE: This attribute specifies whether 

the item can normally be purchased more 

than once within its given context. Valid 

values are “Yes” and “No”. 

SHOWDIALOG: This attribute specifies 

whether or not to display the item’s dialog 

when the item is added. Valid values are 

“Yes” and “No”. This attribute has no effect 

when “Quick Assign” is turned off on the 

Preferences dialog as described in the 

“Application Preferences” section on page 33. It 

can be used in all sections but the POWERS 

section. 

ABBREVIATION: This attribute specifies the 

abbreviation for the item. This value is only 

used when abbreviations are enabled on 

the Preferences dialog as described in the 


WGABBREVIATION: This attribute 

specifies the abbreviation to use when 

both abbreviations and writers’ guidelines 

compliance are enabled on the Preferences 

dialog as described in the “Application 

Preferences” section on page 33. 

WARNSIGN: This attribute specifies whether 

a warning sign appears beside the ability’s 

name in the available item pane. Valid values 

are “Yes” and “No”. 

STOPSIGN: This attribute specifies whether a 

stop sign appears beside the ability’s name in 

the available item pane. Valid values are “Yes” 

and “No”. 

COMMON SUBCONTAINERS 

The following subcontainers are used 

throughout character templates: 

OPTION: This subcontainer is used to present 

the user with a list of options for defining the 

Power. Base Cost, Level Cost, and so forth 

can all be specified on an option by option 

basis. 

Each option must have an XMLID attribute 

assigned to it which is unique within the 

context of the item. Options can contain 

Modifiers and Adders which will only appear 

when the user selects that option. If an option 

has a definition assigned to it, the definition 

of the main ability will be swapped out when 

the option is selected. 

DEFINITION: This subcontainer defines the 

definition for the item. Any text can be used 

here for the container’s contents. 

ADDER: Use this subcontainer to define any 

Adders which are available for the ability. 

Each ADDER container should specify at 

least the XMLID (unique within the context 

of the item), DISPLAY, BASECOST, and 

EXCLUSIVE attributes. You may also specify 

the various level parameters defined above.


BASIC INFO FIELDS 

The following list shows 

the subcontainers that can 

be specified to label fields 

on the Basic Info tab: 

■ NAME1 

■ NAME2 

■ CAMPAIGN 

■ GENRE 

■ PLAYER 

■ GM 

BACKgROUND 

FIELDS 

The following list shows 

the subcontainers that can 

be specified to label fields 

on the Background tab: 

■ EYE_COLOR 

■ HAIR_COLOR 

■ BACKGROUND 

■ PERSONALITY 

■ QUOTE 

■ TACTICS 

■ USE 

■ APPEARANCE 

An ADDER may contain other ADDER 

containers, giving a hierarchical structure 

similar to that which is found in abilities like 

Transport Familiarity. 

Adders can contain EXCLUDES and 

REQUIRES containers which define the 

XMLIDs of other Adders which are either 

excluded or required by this Adder. 

Up to six Adders per ability may contain 

a REQUIRED attribute. Valid values for 

REQUIRED are “Yes” and “No”. When 

set to “Yes”, the Adder will be part of the 

item’s dialog and will always be selected. 

Only Adders with Options should use this 

Attribute. 

MODIFIER: Use this subcontainer to define 

any ability-specific Modifiers which are 

available. If you want to replace one of the 

standard Modifier definitions, you should 

create a Modifier with the same XMLID as 

the Modifier you wish to replace. MODIFIER 

containers can contain Adders and other 

Modifiers. 

The MODIFIER subcontainer may use a 

MULTIPLIER attribute to specify whether or 

not the Modifier is to appear as a multiplier 

on the dialog. Valid values for MULTIPLIER 

are “Yes” and “No”. For example, when 

MULTIPLIER is set to “Yes”, a +1 Modifier is 

displayed as a x2 multiplier. 

TYPE: This subcontainer defines the type of the 

item (for example, ATTACK or DEFENSE). 

The type determines what Modifiers should 

be made available as well as what Enhancers 

will apply to a given Skill or Perk. The 

container’s contents should be text. This 

container may be repeated multiple times so 

that an item may actually have multiple types. 

EXAMPLE: If the item’s container has an 

INPUTLABEL attribute, this subcontainer 

specifies a predefined input example that will 

appear in the dropdown list for the field in 

the item’s dialog labeled by INPUTLABEL. 

Repeat this container for every input example 

you want. 

TEMPLATE CONTAINER 

The main TEMPLATE container contains all the 

other containers used in the template. The following 

are valid attributes for the TEMPLATE container: 

version: This attributes specifies the version of 

Hero Designer character template tags with 

which the template was designed to be used. 

For example, templates designed for Hero 

Designer v2, v3, and 6th Edition would have 

this attribute set to “2.0”. 

extends: This attribute specifies the template that 

this template extends. For example, the builtin 

Superheroic template extends the built-in 

Main template and thus, has this attribute set 

to “builtIn.Main.hdt”. 

ABILITy CONTAINERS 

Most abilities (Skills, Perks, Talents, and so 

forth) defined by the template are defined by a 

container that bears the name of the ability (for 

example, the Acrobatics Skill is defined in the 

ACROBATICS container) or a variation of that 

name (for example, the Darkness Power is defined 

in the DARKNESS container). 

Each ability container features an appropriately 

named generic container that allows you to define 

new abilities of that type. For example, you can use 

the generic SKILL container to define new Skills 

within the SKILLS container. Adders, Modifiers, 

and Disadvantages are also defined with generic 

containers. 

When creating new abilities, it is often useful to 

copy the definition of a similar ability to use as your 

starting point and edit it appropriately. As always, 

be sure to assign a unique XMLID when defining 

new items. 

MAINAPP SECTION 

The MAINAPP section of the template is 

specified with the MAINAPP container. 

This container defines the basic application 

level parameters for characters built with the 

template. This includes the fields that appear on 

the Background tab and, for HERO System Fifth 

Edition templates, information on how Normal 

Characteristic Maxima affect characters built with 

the template. 

All attributes of the MAINAPP tag are fixed, that 

is, you can modify the values, but you cannot create 

new attributes. The following are valid attributes for 

the MAINAPP container: 

HEIGHT: This attribute specifies whether or not 

a Height field appears on the Background 

tab allowing users to enter the height of a 

character. Valid values are “Yes” or “No”. 

WEIGHT: This attribute specifies whether 

or not a Weight field appears on the 

Background tab allowing users to enter the 

weight of a character. Valid values are “Yes” 

or “No”. 

EYECOLOR: This attribute specifies whether 

or not an Eye Color field appears on the 


eye color of a character. Valid values are “Yes” 

or “No”. 

HAIRCOLOR: This attribute specifies whether 

or not a Hair Color field appears on the 


hair color of a character. Valid values are 

“Yes” or “No”. 

BACKGROUND_TAB: This attribute specifies 

whether or not the Background tab is 

included. Valid values are “Yes” or “No”. 

NCM_COST_MULTIPLIER: This attribute 

specifies the effect of exceeding the Normal 

Characteristic Maxima level on a given 

Characteristic, that is, the value indicates by


Character Templates ■ 47 

how much to multiply the cost of increased 

levels. The value must be an integer. 

This attribute can be omitted if the characters 

to be built with the template do not use 

Normal Characteristic Maxima. For example, 

the standard Vehicle template does not use 

this attribute nor do HERO System Sixth 

Edition characters. 

GENERAL_LEVEL: This attribute specifies the 

value for the “General” Characteristic. This 

is used for Skills such as Knowledge Skills 

which are based off of “General” rather than 

a Characteristic. The standard templates have 

this attribute set to “10”. 

The MAINAPP section also defines Normal 

Characteristic Maxima with the NCM container. 

If you do not want Normal Characteristic Maxima 

available for characters built with this template, do 

not include the NCM container. 

The NCM container has the following attributes: 

XMLID: This attribute is described in the 

“Common Attributes” section on page 44. 

DISPLAY: This attribute specifies what you want 

Normal Characteristic Maxima to be called in 

this template. This is normally set to “Normal 

Characteristic Maxima”. 

BASECOST: This attribute specifies the base 

value of the Disadvantage associated with 

Normal Characteristic Maxima. The value 

must be an integer. 

For example, standard Heroic templates 

have this attribute set to “0”, while standard 

Superheroic templates have it set to “20”. 

Within the NCM container, you can specify 

any number of OPTION containers that define 

the various age restrictions available. Each of these 

OPTION containers must have a unique XMLID. 

Each Characteristic affected by the age restriction 

must also have a corresponding attribute (with the 

same name as the OPTION’s XMLID attribute) 

that specifies the Characteristic maximum for that 

age restriction. Examples of this can be seen in the 

copies of the standard templates provided. 

Each OPTION container used to define an 

age restriction also has a DISPLAY attribute that 

specifies the name of the restriction (for example, 

“40+ Years Old”) and a BASECOST attribute that 

specifies the value of the Disadvantage associated 

with taking Normal Characteristic Maxima and this 

age restriction. 

Finally, the MAINAPP section also uses 

several subcontainers to specify the labels used 

for fields on the Basic Info and Background 

tabs. These subcontainers are listed in the “Basic 

Info Fields” and “Background Fields” sidebars 

on page 46. If any of these subcontainers (except 

EYE_COLOR or HAIR_COLOR) are empty (for 

example, or 

), the field that it labels is removed from 

the appropriate tab. 

CHARACTERISTICS SECTION 

This section defines the Characteristics available 

for characters built with this template. 

A template can include any of the Characteristics 

listed in the “Available Characteristics” sidebar, 

as appropriate. For example, in the standard 

Hero Designer templates, the DEF and SIZE 

Characteristics are only used in the Vehicle 

template, while the BASESIZE Characteristic is 

only used in the Base template. There are also 10 

custom characteristics (CUSTOM1, CUSTOM2, 

… CUSTOM10) that you can use to define new 

characteristics. 

To include a Characteristic in a template, the 

CHARACTERISTICS section should include a 

container with the name of the Characteristic. Such 

a container can have the following attributes: 

BASE: This attribute specifies the base value for 

the Characteristic on the Characteristics tab. 

Any levels gained from this are free. 

POSITION: This attribute specifies position 

in the Characteristic list in which the 

Characteristic should appear (relative to the 

others) 

[XXX]INCREASE: This attribute specifies the 

amount to increase another Characteristic 

(or other aspect of the character) relative to 

this one. 

[XXX]INCREASELEVELS: This attribute 

specifies the number of levels of the 

Characteristic before the increase defined 

by [XXX]INCREASE takes effect. For 

example, the DEX container in HERO 

System Fifth Edition templates has the 

attributes SPDINCREASE=“1” and 

SPDINCREASELEVELS=“10”. 

Using the [XXX]INCREASE and [XXX] 

INCREASELEVELS attributes let you specify which 

Characteristics are Figured Characteristics as well 

as the formula used to determine their value. Valid 

values for [XXX] are STR, DEX, CON, BODY, INT, 

EGO, PRE, COM, PD, ED, SPD, REC, END, STUN, 

KB, REACH, HEIGHT, WIDTH, DCV, OCV, 

PER, ECV, DEF, SIZE, LEAPING, RUNNING, 

and SWIMMING as well as CUSTOM1, 

CUSTOM2, … CUSTOM10. You should never 

have a Characteristic increase itself in this manner 

(that is, the STR container should never have 

the STRINCREASE or STRINCREASELEVELS 

attributes). 

The OCVINCREASE, DCVINCREASE, 

OCVINCREASELEVELS, and 

DCVINCREASELEVELS attributes are only usable 

with the calculated OCV and DCV in HERO System 

Fifth Edition templates, and not with the OCV and 

DCV Characteristics in HERO System Sixth Edition 

templates. 

In templates that use Normal Characteristic 

Maxima (NCM), Characteristic containers also 

define the various limits for NCM. These attributes 

take the form of NCM=“10” or NCM40=“15”, 

and so forth. The name of the attribute (that is, 

AvAILABLE 

CHARACTERISTICS 

There are many built-in 

Characteristic containers 

that can be specified in a 

Hero Designer character 

template. The following are 

from HERO System Fifth 

Edition: 

■ STR 

■ DEX 

■ CON 

■ BODY 

■ INT 

■ EGO 

■ PRE 

■ COM 

■ PD 

■ ED 

■ SPD 

■ REC 

■ END 

■ STUN 

■ DEF 

■ SIZE 

■ BASESIZE 

■ RUNNING 

■ SWIMMING 

■ LEAPING 

In addition, the following 

built-in Characteristic 

containers from HERO 

System Sixth Edition are 

available: 

■ OCV 

■ DCV 

■ OMCV 

■ DMCV 

Finally, the following 

custom Characteristic 

container are available: 

■ CUSTOM1 

■ CUSTOM2 

■ CUSTOM3 

■ CUSTOM4 

■ CUSTOM5 

■ CUSTOM6 

■ CUSTOM7 

■ CUSTOM8 

■ CUSTOM9 

■ CUSTOM10


NCM or NCM40) should match the XMLID of 

the appropriate NCM OPTION specified in the 

MAINAPP section. The value is the maximum 

value before the Normal Characteristic Maxima 

cost multiplier kicks in. 

In addition, Characteristic containers can 

include Adders and Modifiers, although these will 

only be used when the Characteristic is purchased 

as a Power. 

An example of modifying Characteristic 

definitions and adding new Characteristics appears 

in the “Creating Extension Templates” section on 

page 50. 

SKILLS SECTION 

The SKILLS section defines the Skills available 

for characters built with the template. 

In addition to the common subcontainers 

listed on page 45, Skills use a subcontainer called 

CHARACTERISTIC_CHOICE. This subcontainer 

specifies on what Characteristic a Skill is based. 

When multiple CHARACTERISTIC_CHOICE 

subcontainers are present, users are presented with 

a dropdown selection list, letting them choose 

on which Characteristic to base the Skill. Each 

CHARACTERISTIC_CHOICE subcontainer has a 

single subcontainer of its own: ITEM. 

ITEM can define the following values: 

BASECOST, LVLCOST, LVLVAL, and 

CHARACTERISTIC. The CHARACTERISTIC 

value should match one of the Characteristics 

defined in the template’s CHARACTERISTICS 

section. Additionally, you may use the value 

GENERAL to refer to the GENERAL_LEVEL 

defined in the MAINAPP section. 

As a general rule, you should not change 

flat-cost Skills (that is, Skills that do not have a 

LVLCOST, LVLVAL, and so forth defined) to levelbased 

Skills or vice-versa. The safest way to edit 

abilities in this section is to just change the values of 

attributes that are already specified. 

You can add Adders and Modifiers to any Skill. 

To create new Skills, use the generic SKILL 

container and assign it a unique XMLID. 

This container uses the same attributes and 

subcontainers as the predefined Skills. An example 

of creating a new Skill appears in the “Creating 

Extension Templates” section on page 50. 

SKILL_ENHANCERS SECTION 

All Skill Enhancers (Scholar, Scientist, and so 

forth) are defined in this section. The available Skill 

Enhancers are fixed, though you can change any 

of the attributes and set what types of item each 

affects (for example, KNOWLEDGE, CONTACT, 

and so forth) by using the TYPE container. 

The only attribute unique to Skill Enhancers is 

COSTSAVINGS. This attribute should be set to an 

integer value and represents the amount to deduct 

from the cost of any abilities which match the 

Enhancer’s type. 

You cannot add new Skill Enhancers. Nor 

can you can you remove a Skill Enhancer from 

the menu. However, you can use the REMOVE 

container described in “Creating Extension 

Templates” on page 50 to disable a Skill Enhancer 

and prevent it from being selected from the Skill 

Enhancer menu. You can also use Custom Adders 

to simulate new Skill Enhancers as described 

in the “Attaching Custom Adders To Lists And 

Frameworks” sidebar on page 26. 

MARTIAL_ARTS SECTION 

All Martial Maneuvers and related abilities 

(extra Damage Classes, Weapon Element, and 

so forth) are defined in this section. The related 

abilities (extra Damage Classes, Weapon Element, 

and so forth) are fixed (that is, you cannot add new 

ones), though the attributes can all be edited to 

change their structure. 

All maneuvers are defined with the generic 

MANEUVER container. The valid attributes for the 

MANEUVER container are as follows: 

DISPLAY: This attribute specifies the default 

name of the maneuver. 

CATEGORY: This attribute specifies the 

category of the Maneuver. By default, there 

are two categories: “Hand To Hand” and 

“Ranged”. If you define a Maneuver with a 

different value for CATEGORY, it will be 

placed in a list for that category. Any string 

value may be used here. 

OCV: This attribute specifies the OCV modifier 

for the Maneuver. Any String value may 

be used here (so you may specify “--“ for 

Maneuvers like Dodge) , though the length of 

the string should be limited for formatting. 

DCV: This attribute specifies the DCV modifier 

for the maneuver. Any String value may be 

used here, though the length of the string 

should be limited for formatting. 

DC: This attribute specifies the number of 

additional damage classes of effect this 

Maneuver provides. Any integer value may be 

used here. 

PHASE: This attribute specifies how many 

phases it takes to perform the Maneuver. Any 

string value may be used here, though for 

formatting, you should limit the length to 3 

characters or less. 

EFFECT: This attribute specifies the text that 

should appear in the effect column for this 

Maneuver. 

WEAPONEFFECT: This attribute specifies the 

text that should appear in the effect column 

for this Maneuver if the user specifies that it 

is used with a weapon. The presence of this 

Attribute will create a drop-down list for the 

user to select whether they are purchasing the 

maneuver for use with a weapon or empty 

hand. 

The EFFECT and WEAPONEFFECT 

attributes specify the damage that a Maneuver


does. To represent the different types of damage 

(normal, killing, NND, and so forth), you 

can use the following special strings within 

the value definitions for these attributes: 

[NORMALDC], [WEAPONDC], [FLASHDC], 

[NNDDC], [STRDC], [KILLINGDC], and 

[WEAPONKILLINGDC]. These special strings 

include, where appropriate, all Damage Classes 

from both the maneuver itself and the character’s 

STR as well as any appropriate extra Damage 

Classes purchased. 

For example, the EFFECT attribute for the Basic 

Strike Maneuver is set to “[NORMALDC] Strike” in 

the standard templates resulting in a display of “6d6 

Strike” for a STR 15 character who has purchased 

+1HTH Damage Class(es). 

PERKS SECTION 

All Perks are defined in this section. The list of 

available Perks is fixed, though the attributes for any 

given Perk can be edited to change most aspects of 

the Perk itself. 


flat-cost Perks (that is, Perks that do not have 

LVLCOST, LVLVAL, and so forth defined) to 

level-based Perks or vice-versa. The safest way to 

edit abilities in this section is to change the values 

of Attributes that are already specified. Also, you 

cannot change a roll-based Perk to a non-roll-based 

Perk (or vice versa) as the formatting for display 

on the character sheet pane (and thus, exporting as 

well) is contained within the application itself. 

You can add Adders and/or Modifiers to any of 

the Perks. 

To create new Perks, use the generic PERK 



subcontainers as the predefined Perks. 

TALENTS SECTION 

All Talents are defined in this section. The list 

of available Talents is fixed, though the attributes 

for any given Talent can be edited to change most 

aspects of the Talent itself. 

In addition to the common subcontainers 

listed on page 45, Talents use a subcontainer called 

CHARACTERISTIC_CHOICE. This subcontainer 

specifies on what Characteristic a Talent is 

based. When a Talent container has multiple 

CHARACTERISTIC_CHOICE subcontainers, 

the users are presented with a dropdown 

selection list, letting them choose on which of 

these Characteristics to base the Talent. Each 

CHARACTERISTIC_CHOICE subcontainer has a 

single subcontainer of its own: ITEM. 

ITEM can define the following values: 

BASECOST, LVLCOST, LVLVAL, and 

CHARACTERISTIC. The CHARACTERISTIC 

value should match one of the Characteristics 

defined in the template’s CHARACTERISTICS 

section. Additionally, you may use the value 

GENERAL to refer to the GENERAL_LEVEL 

defined in the MAINAPP section. 


flat-cost Talents (i.e. Talents that do not have a 

LVLCOST, etc. defined) to level-based Talents or 

vice-versa. The safest way to edit abilities in this 

section is to change the values of Attributes that 

are already specified. Also, you cannot change a 

roll-based Talent to a non-roll-based Talent (or vice 

versa) as the formatting for display for display on 

the character sheet pane (and thus, exporting as 

well) is contained within the application itself. 

You can add Adders and/or Modifiers to any of 

the Talents. 

To create new Talents, use the generic TALENT 



subcontainers as the predefined Talents.. 

POWERS SECTION 

All Powers are defined in this section. The list 

of available Powers is fixed, though the attributes 

for any given Power can be edited to change most 

aspects of the Power itself. 

In addition to the common attributes listed on 

page 44, Power containers can have the following 

attributes: 

DURATION: This attribute specifies the 

duration of the Power. Valid values are 

“INSTANT”, “CONSTANT”, “PERSISTENT”, 

and “INHERENT”. 

TARGET: This attribute specifies how the Power 

is targeted. Valid values are “SELFONLY”, 

“DCV”, “ECV”, and “HEX”. 

The value “HEX” is also used for Powers that 

target a 2 meter area in HERO System Sixth 

Edition. 

RANGE: This attributes specifies the range of 

the Power. Valid values are “SELF”, “Yes”, 

“No”, and “LOS”. 

VISIBLE: This attribute specifies whether or not 

a Power is visible. Valid values are “Yes” and 

“No”. 

In addition, Power Containers can also 

use the attributes [XXX]INCREASE and 

[XXX]INCREASELEVELS as defined in 

“CHARACTERISTICS Section” on page 47. 

MODIFIERS SECTION 

All Modifiers are defined in this section. 

Modifiers use the generic MODIFIER container 

combined with a unique XMLID. This means you 

can create as many new Modifiers as you like. Each 

Modifier is defined in a MODIFIER container. 

A MODIFIER container may use the 

EXCLUDES and REQUIRES attributes. These 

attributes hold a simple string which should be 

equal to the XMLID of the Modifier that you wish 

to make exclusive or required.


BUILT-IN TEMPLATE 

NAMES 

The following are the 

names of the built-in 

templates to be used with 

the extends attribute of the 

TEMPLATE container: 

■ builtIn.Main6E.hdt 

■ builtIn.Heroic6E.hdt 

■ builtIn.Superheroic6E. 

hdt 

■ builtIn.Vehicle6E.hdt 

■ builtIn.Base6E.hdt 

■ builtIn.Automaton6E.hdt 

■ builtIn.Computer6E.hdt 

■ builtIn.AI6E.hdt 

■ builtIn.Main.hdt 

■ builtIn.Normal.hdt 

■ builtIn.Heroic.hdt 

■ builtIn.Superheroic.hdt 

■ builtIn.Vehicle.hdt 

■ builtIn.Base.hdt 

■ builtIn.Automaton.hdt 

■ builtIn.Computer.hdt 

■ builtIn.AI.hdt 

DISADvANTAgES SECTION 

All Complications (or Disadvantages) are 

defined in this section. Complications use the 

generic DISADVANTAGE container combined 

with a unique XMLID. This means you can create as 

many new Complications as you like. There are no 

special Attributes or Containers for Complications. 

Complications in the standard templates make 

heavy use of the REQUIRED attribute for many of 

their Adders. 

Creating Extension 

Templates 

As mentioned earlier, the recommended way to 

create a custom template is to create an extension 

template that is based on one of the existing 

built-in templates. This section looks at common 

considerations when creating an extension template 

based on the built-in Main template. 

An extension template contains all the sections 

of a standard template. So, to begin, it’s best to start 

with an empty template that basically inherits all 

the features of the Main template. In fact, that is 

how the built-in Superheroic template is defined. 

 

 

... 

 

 

... 

 

 

... 

 

 

... 

 

 

... 

 

 

... 

 

 

... 

 

 

... 

 

 

... 

 

 

... 

 

 

Once you have the basic template defined, you 

can add the changes you want. 

First, you decide you want to add a new Figured 

Characteristic named Education (EDU) to a HERO 

System Fifth Edition template. EDU will have a 

base value of INT/2 and can be increased at a cost 

of 1 point per +1. As mentioned earlier, you can 

implement the addition of a new Characteristic 

by using the custom Characteristics, in this 

case, CUSTOM1. However, because this new 

Characteristic is based on INT, you must redefine 

both CUSTOM1 and INT. To do so, include the 

following in the CHARACTERISTICS container: 

 

Hero System Fifth Edition Rule Book 

Sidekick 

(Hero System Fifth Edition Rule Book, 

page 23; Revised, page 37) Intelligence represents a 

character’s ability to take in and process information 

quickly. 

 

 

(Template extension) Education 

represents a character’s level of education. 

 

This positions the new EDU Characteristic 

at the bottom of the Characteristic list following 

the Movement abilities. To position it somewhere 

else in the list, you would need to redefine any 

Characteristics which would follow it in the list to 

adjust its POSITION attribute. 

If you were adding EDU as a Characteristic to a 

HERO System Sixth Edition template, the approach 

would be slightly different. In this case, EDU will 

not be based on INT but will simply have a starting 

value of 2. As a result, there is no need to redefine 

INT; you need only define EDU. 

 

(Template extension) Education 

represents a character’s level of education. 

 

Next you decide to add a new Skill named 

Leadership based on the example from the HERO 

System Sixth Edition and HERO System Sixth 

Edition rulebooks. To do so, you would make use of 

the generic SKILL container described in “SKILLS


Section” on page 48 and place the following definition 

in the SKILLS container of a HERO System Fifth 

Edition template: 

 

 

 

 

Hero System Fifth Edition Rule Book 

(Hero System Fifth Edition Rule Book 

sample, page 352; Revised, page 562)Characters 

with this Interaction Skill can lead and inspire men 

in battle. 

 

 

For a HERO System Sixth Edition temple, you 

would place the following in the SKILLS container: 

 

 

 

 

Characters with this Interaction Skill can 

lead and inspire men in battle. 

 

 

The easiest way to create this definition is to 

copy the definition of a similar Skill (in this case, 

Persuasion) and edit it appropriately. 

You also decide that you do not want the 

Universal Translator Talent in this custom template. 

To accomplish this, you would use the REMOVE 

container and place the following in the TALENTS 

container: 

UNIVERSAL_TRANSLATOR 

The REMOVE container causes the extension 

template not to inherit an item from the template 

it is based on. The value placed in the container 

identifies the item. For items which have a unique 

container such as Universal Translator, it is the 

name of that container. For items which have an 

XMLID attribute, it is the value of that attribute. For 

example, to remove the Indirect Advantage, which 

has an XMLID of “INDIRECT”, you would place 

the following in the MODIFIERS container: 

INDIRECT 

As these examples show, you can express the 

differences between the extension template and the 

base template using three different methods: adding 

new items, redefining existing ones, and removing 

items. 

So far, the examples given have been of a single 

extension template extending a single built-in 

template. That is, the extension template inherits 

features from a single parent template. However, 

you can also create an extension template that 

inherits features from multiple parent templates. To 

do so, instead of specifying a single template name 

as the value of the extends attribute, you specify 

a comma-separated list of template names as the 

value of that attribute. 

The order of the parent templates in this list is 

very important. The first template in the string gets 

precedence over all others, and so on down the 

string. For example, if you have a custom template 

named C.hdt which has the following extends 

attribute: 

extends=”A.hdt, B.hdt”> 

If A.hdt and B.hdt both define the Armor Power, 

A’s definition will be used as the base for C.hdt 

because A.hdt comes before B.hdt in the list of 

parent templates. 

Things get a little more confusing when dealing 

with REMOVE containers in the parent templates. 

Suppose A.hdt removes the STR Characteristic, 

but B.hdt does not. C.hdt will contain B.hdt’s 

definition of the STR Characteristic. If you don’t 

want this, you will need to either remove STR from 

C.hdt or redefine it, whichever suits your needs. 

The best way to think about this is that C.hdt 

inherits the first definition of a given ability in the 

list of parent templates. Since A.hdt removes the 

definition for STR, it does not have that ability. 

B.hdt therefore becomes the first template in the list 

to contain the definition. 

Another tricky area is the containers found in 

the MAINAPP section. In general, the first template 

in list of parent templates defines the defaults for 

the MAINAPP section. The only exception is NCM. 

The first template in the list of parent templates 

which contains an NCM container defines both 

the NCM object as well as the default value for the 

NCM cost multiplier for the extension template. 

When you have finished creating your extension 

template be sure to save it with a .hdt extension. You 

can then assign it to a character by selecting Choose 

File… from the Template menu as described in 

the “Changing The Character Template” section on 

page 6.

52 ■ Export Formats Hero Designer 6th Edition 

ExPORT FORMATS 


chapter on page 2, Export Formats are 

files which contain special fields that 

get replaced by information from your 

character when you export that character. 

Because the Export Format determines what 

information is exported and where it is placed 

in the exported file, this feature lets you create 

character sheets with a wide variety of looks. 

Hero Designer provides many Export Formats 

including a HTML template based on the standard 

HERO System Fifth Edition character sheet as well 

as a variety of HERO System Sixth Edition formats 

and many others. These can be found in the Export 

Formats section of the Hero Designer area of the 

Hero Games website (www.herogames.com). 

Currently, Hero Designer only exports text files. 

This means that you can only create templates in 

text-based formats. This could be HTML (for web 

browsers), plain text, or more complex formats such 

as RTF (used by many word processors including 

Microsoft Word). You cannot create templates in 

binary formats. 

You can edit or create an Export Format using 

any standard text editor such as the Notepad 

application on Windows systems or the VI editor on 

Linux and UNIX systems. Once you have finished 

editing or creating an Export Format, be sure to 

save it with a .hde extension. Only files with a .hde 

extension are recognized as Export Formats. 

While the following sections describe the 

structure of an Export Format and define the tags 

and containers used, a greater understanding can be 

obtained by viewing the Export Formats available, 

so you can see how these items are actually used. 

You can also often find help with creating Export 

Formats in the Hero Designer discussion board on 

the Hero Games website at www.herogames.com. 

CREATINg AN ExPORT 

FORMAT 

The Export Format structure is based on tags 

and containers. The definition of a tag is simply 

anything that looks like the following: 

 

A container has a similar appearance, but (as the 

name suggests) it contains other items. It has both a 

beginning and an ending tag. Like this: 

 

…any text here…. 

 

The tag for the end of the container is the 

same as the tag for the beginning with a / inserted 

before the container name. Note that the “--” at the 

beginning and end of tag names is two hyphens. 

Tags are single entities. They don’t contain 

anything and Hero Designer simply replaces them 

with the appropriate value when it creates an 

export file. You can repeat any tag as many times 

as you want. Each occurrence is replaced with the 

appropriate value. 

Containers may contain other tags or even other 

containers. There are several containers that entail 

certain logical checks be made by the application 

before inserting any values. These will be discussed 

below. 

A list of the available tags and containers appears 

in the “Available Tags And Containers” section on 

page 54. A similar list can be found in the Export 

Formats section of the Hero Designer area of the 

Hero Games website (www.herogames.com). As 

updates to Hero Designer are released, additional 

tags and containers may be made available. If there 

is information that you would like to see made 

available for export, send an e-mail to support@ 

herodesigner.com requesting it. 

To create an Export Format, you simply write 

the template file in whatever mark-up language you 

choose (plain text, HTML, RTF, TEX, LaTEX, and 

so forth) and insert the tags and containers at the 

point where you want text from the character to be 

inserted. 

Any text that is inside of a container is 

preserved. This is useful when dealing with 

containers that represent “1 to many” values 

(like Powers). These containers loop through 

the specified values and insert the text and tags 

contained within them once for each value they 

encounter. For example, the … 

container will loop through each 

Power the character has bought and each time, 

insert the text between the beginning and ending

Hero Designer 6th Edition Export Formats ■ 53 

tag. If there are any subcontainers or tags, they will 

be evaluated for each Power. 

Once you have written and saved your Export 

Format, you’re ready to test it out. Fire up Hero 

Designer and try exporting a character with the 

new format. 

Describing The Format 

Hero Designer has several containers for 

specifying general information about the Export 

Format. 

To specify the display name of the Export 

Format to be used in the list of available formats 

presented by Hero Designer, use the container: 

 

 

The text in this container is used as the display. 

Everything from the beginning tag to the ending 

tag (inclusive) will be removed from the final export 

file. The name should be kept short for display 

purposes. 

To specify the description of the Export Format 

to be displayed in this list, use the container: 

 

 

The text contained between these two tags 

will appear as the format’s description in the list 

of available Export Formats presented by Hero 

Designer. Everything from the beginning tag to the 

ending tag (inclusive) will be removed from the 

final export file. 

To specify the valid file extensions for files 

exported using this Export Format, use the 

container: 

 

 

This container can be repeated multiple times. 

For example: 

html 

htm 

Replacement Containers 

Occasionally, when creating a Hero Designer 

Export Format, you may find it useful to be able to 

replace one string of text in the output with another 

each time the first string occurs. You can do this by 

using the REPLACE container and its associated 

subcontainers. For example: 

 

abc 

xyz 

 

replaces each occurrence of the string “abc” (as 

specified by the DEFSTRING subcontainer) with 

the string “xyz” (as specified by the REPSTRING 

subcontainer). 

For more sophisticated replacements, Hero 

Designer provides the REG_REPLACE container 

and its subcontainers. This container has the form: 

 

… 

… 

 

This is similar to the REPLACE container except 

that the REGSTRING subcontainer contains a 

regular expression. Regular expressions are complex 

constructions that specify a pattern of characters 

to be matched. They are particularly common in 

many UNIX utilities and in languages like Perl. 

A discussion of regular expressions is beyond the 

scope of this manual; however, the a quick web 

search should turn up plenty of information if 

you are not already familiar with the concept. The 

REPSTRING subcontainer specifies the string that 

will replace the strings matched by the regular 

expression in the REGSTRING subcontainer. 

MATH Container 

Hero Designer also allows you to perform 

basic mathematical calculation with the MATH 

container. The contents of this container is a 

mathematical expression. In the exported file, the 

MATH container is replaced with the calculated 

value of the expression. For example: 

 

3 * 

 

is replaced with the value of 3 times the 

character’s STR characteristic. 

Mathematical expressions in the MATH 

container can use the four basic mathematical 

operations (+, -, *, and /) as well as parentheses. 

Conditional Containers 

Hero Designer features a variety of conditional 

containers. These containers (which normally begin 

with IF or IS) only have their contents included in 

the exported files if the condition is true. 

For example, the following container only has 

its contents included if the character has purchased 

any Maneuvers: 

 

 

Similarly, the following container only has its 

contents included if the current item is in a list or 

Framework: 

 

 

Looping Containers 

This section describes looping containers and 

some of the tags and other containers that can be 

used in conjunction with them.


As mentioned earlier, containers that represent 

general ability categories such as: 

 

’ 

automatically loop through all abilities of that type, 

one at a time. 

Hero Designer also has several containers which 

give you greater control over such loops. 

To specify the item which begins the loop, use 

the container: 

 

 

For example, the following means “Start with the 

10th item in the loop:”: 

10 

Similarly, the following container specifies which 

item ends the loop: 

 

 

For example the following means “Stop with the 

20th item in the loop:”: 

20 

These containers let you create Export Formats 

that place sections of an ability list in different 

places of the exported file. 

COMBAT RECORD ExPORT 

FORMATS 

Combat record Export Formats are a special case 

of Export Format. As the name indicates, they are 

used for exporting combat records, as described in 

the “Combat Records” section on page 31. 

In most ways, combat record Export Formats are 

just like regular Export Formats with one exception. 

They have a special container: 

 

 

which is a looping container that loops through 

each character specified to be included in the 

combat record. Within this container, you can place 

any appropriate tag or container. The following 

containers are particularly appropriate for including 

a table that shows which characters act in which 

phases: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once you have finished editing or creating a 

combat record Export Format, be sure to save the 

template with a .hcr extension. Only files with a .hcr 

extension are recognized as combat record Export 

Formats. 

AvAILABLE TAgS AND 

CONTAINERS 

Basic Tags 

FORMAT INFORMATION TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHARACTER INFORMATION TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


IMAgE TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

POINT TOTAL TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OCv, DCv, AND ECv TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EqUIPMENT TAgS 

 

 

 

REPLACEMENT TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MATH TAgS 

 

[simple math formulae including the symbols *, /, 

+, -, (, )] 

 

NOTE TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

COMBAT RECORD TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RUNNINg TAgS 

Movement Tags 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SWIMMINg TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

LEAPINg TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FLIgHT TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

gLIDINg TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SWINgINg TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TELEPORTATION TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TUNNELINg TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Characteristic Tags 

gENERAL CHARACTERISTIC TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTIC TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[General Characteristic Tags] 

 

 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 


 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 


 

gENERAL TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ability Tags


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[General Tags] 

 

 


 

COMBAT LEvEL TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 


 

LIgHTNINg REFLExES 

 

 

 

 

 


 

MARTIAL ART TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

SKILL TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

PERK TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



TALENT TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

POWER TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

EqUIPMENT TAgS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

COMPLICATION/DISADvANTAgE TAgS

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